Halo 3: The Alliance
by Warbirds
Summary: The Master Chief and the Arbiter unite and try to save their races against opposing forces from destruction. Read and review. Edit: Finally! New chapter!
1. It's Just the Start of It

**Disclaimer: I do not own Bungie or Halo, except my copy.**

**A/N: When in the Covenant POV, I will be using their proper names instead of Brute, Elite, etc. Thoughts, A.I.'s talking and and ship names, communications will be in _Italic_ form.**

**Note: To any and all who steal my content, you will be prosecuted to the maximum legal extent. If I can't do anything about it legaly, I will flame you and report you. Unless it was honestly a coincidence. **

**Chapter 1: It's Just the Start of It  
**

The Master Chief was walking around one of the many landing bays found on this Forerunner ship. He was examining his surroundings while checking his ammo. He had 3 BR55 clips, and an Energy Sword with a 79 percent charge, with another power cell. He then started to make his way throught the only open door, and he found that there was a Brute patrol on on the other end of the hallway that was just leaving the area.

Chief then shot 2 bursts from his BR55 and killed 3 of them. The remaining Brute and the Brute Captain were still alive, slowly registered in their minds that their comrads had just died. As soon as they had realized that some of their squad had died however, they were cut down by the Chiefs 3rd shot. He then looked out of the window and saw that the battle for Earth was still commencing after 2 days straight.

* * *

"Ahh shit! Status report, Templar!" said Lord Hood 

"_we have had 23 percent damage sir, I am firing at will, we have 241 MAC rounds left, and I have gotten 19 kills" _said Templar, the platforms A.I.

"Templar, bring me up a fleet wide transmission. Tell whichever ships that are not engaged in battle to target that one that is firing at us" said Hood

_"Yes sir, message sent."_ The _Cairo's_ bridge had just shook from another shot from the Super MAC Gun. Soon the targeted ship would be shot down, and it would confuse the enemy more then they thought.

Grapner, the weapons officer, said "Ship Master Pogrin, we have 13 of the human's weapons bearing down on us and ready to fire, and we only have..." Grapner looked at the status screen for a moment "...41 percent of our shields left!"

"We have no way to win this fight, we must set a course with the nearest Human ship, and ram it, also fire all weapons at a set of targets, I don't care what it is" Ship Master Pogrin said. Pogrin thought "_without the Sangheili here, it makes our space battles that much more difficult, however, they have all become Heretics to the Prophets eyes, surely they have their reasons, but we Jiralhanea are suited for ground combat" _

Soon the _Fury of the Gods_ would be destroyed under the mass of the Human's weapons, and there was nothing that they could do about it.

"Change course to bearing 078, and fire when in range" said the Captain of the _Hindenburgh_.

"Yes sir" said the weapons officer, because they're ship was just recently built, they do not have an A.I. yet. This happened with 11 other ships and the _Cairo_, who are attacking the commanding ship of the fleet they are against.

"Sir! Incoming Seraphs, I count 6." said navigations officer Lieutenant Valais.

The Captain said "launch 8 Longswords and hurry up with taking down that boat!"

A chorus of 'aye ayes' were sounded throughout the bridge as the inexperienced crew maintained to their duties. They all heard a loud thump on the bridge, signifying that they had fired their own shot out of 12 more to hit it.

* * *

Master Chief shook his head and sighed. He had not been able to get any rest since about the day before the award ceremony aboard the _Cairo_. But luckily, he and his other Spartans were trained to last a week without rest. 

He had run into 4 other Brute patrols, and he had expended most of his ammunition by now. He counted his munitions, he had 12 rounds in his BR55, and 1 clip left over, and he had already used most of the first power sell for his Energy Sword, he checked it and found out that there was only a 7 percent charge left. He quickly switched the power cores and continued down the hall, without Cortana, he did not know the layout of this ship, and nore could he be able to tell if he was near Truth, in fact, he might have passed him. But do to the fact that there are increasingly more and more patrols, he was able to figure out that he was not far.

**A/N: I hope that you like it so far! I will continue on my story when I can, which is alot, because my school does not have alot of stuff to prepare for finals! WOOT. Anyways, the Hindenburgh will be used in future chapters, as you can tell its new, it has all of the up to date armaments besides some of the covenant MAPC guns. But whether you like it or not, I will continue to post up chapters.**


	2. The Capture Of The Rising Ascension Pt1

**A/N: Nothing here this time.**

**Chapter 2: The Capture of the _Rising Ascension_**

"Noble Prophet of Truth, I humbly present myself before you in all of you're mercy" said Tarflus, the first son of Tartarus. Truth raised his hand is signal for him to get up.

"Although the Demon is here upon our ship, defiling its Holy presence with his filthy footsteps, he has still managed to take down four of our scout teams sent to check on his position. That of which is an unfortunate turn of events on itself, I will now have you bear the responsibility of defending the _Rising Ascension_ from his desecration. As for Hartio's failure, he will be punished most severely."

"Yes, Excellency, I will do my best" Tarflus walked away with his eyes lowered in a sign of respect to the Prophet, and continued to leave the Prophet's Sermon Room.

Once out of the room, he thought to himself "Hartio, why did you have to fail? Now I have to take responsibility for the treachery" Although Tarflus wanted to have the glory of taking the Demon down, if he failed, he would be executed for his incompetence, and his death would be humiliating, and publicly announced.

* * *

The Chief just took two more patrols down, with a little trap from plasma grenades set as distractions for Truth. He was very close, as he knew that the Covenant ships mimicked the Forerunner designs. That and he was running into patrols almost routinely now, about every 3 minutes he counted.

"_I need to find an armory, or at least get some more plasma grenades"_ thought the Chief. He opened a comm. channel to Admiral Hood and said "_Admiral, this is Spartan 117, I need some drop ships over here for support, troops, and ammo, over" _

_"This is Lord Hood, Master Chief the supplies and soldiers you requested will be sent once you can confirm that that ship's shields are down" _

_"Admiral, from the schematics I have here, it says that the landing bays don't have shields, they just have extra strong hull armor" _

_"Well Master Chief, I will send those boys over to you in a minute, meet them in our designated landing bay" _A nav point appeared over the Spartan's HUD_ "Roger that sir, 117 out._ Master Chief walked down the hall that he had previously covered in blood form a killing spree a couple minutes ago, and continued through the hallway, soon he saw four pelicans unload 12 Hell Jumpers each, along with ammo crates, and they then left as soon as they had come.

A Captain by the name of Wellow showed up on his CNI Transponder approached him, "we are all ready to go when you are Chief, just get you're gear you wanted and we'll all move out under you're command." The Chief nodded, and made his way to the ammo and gun crates. Inside he found that there was some of the old MA5B's, a couple BR55's, and a few M90's. He also saw a few weapons he hadn't before so he said "Captain, what are these?" as he held up one of the new rifles.

"Oh, I forgot we had that in here, that is the new MA8B Tactical Rifle, it fires an 80 round clip, and has three basic firing styles, if you hadn't noticed before, most of the ODST's here are using them. Master Chief looked at the troopers, and found to disbelief that most of the soldiers _were_ using them, he must be getting tired since he didn't notice. So the Chief went to take each of the assault rifles, and he saw the new one has a scope like the BR55's,

"_I hope these things will get the job done like the MA5B" _he thought as he took ten clips for each gun, as well as 8 frags, as he had no plasma grenades. "Everyone, start building a permiter as they will surely send out an attack force. MG's up front, everyone else dig in!" Master Chief said.

* * *

"Noble Hierarch, we have found out that the Humans have discovered the weakness in our landing bays. They appear to have landed a platton sized force if my information is correct, plus supplies, and have established a temporary HQ" Tarflus said.

"Do to these events; I will have to evacuate this ship once the Humans get to close, in order to conserve what remains of the Hierarchs." Truth said. "You must defend this command deck Tarflus! Make an attack on the Humans, and if that fails get you're remaining trops back here. Do NOT have this ship tainted anymore by the Human filth!" "Yes, Noble Prophet of Truth, I will carry out you're orders without flaw."

Tarflus bowed his head and eyes in respect, and backed out of Truth's private quarters. He hurredly went to his barracks, which happens to be the ship's galley. He gave a quick snarl, and his subordinates woke up and listened to what he had to say. After he gave his motivational speech, a series of roars were heard in approval. "Come, brothers, and we shall slay these vermin without hesitation!" And so began the Jiralhanea attack consisting of about 50 soldiers.

* * *

The Chief heard them coming, and told everyone over the comm. to try and get headshots. It's a good thing that they also brought in some Jackhammers for the brutes, otherwise this defensive might fail. The Spartan set 3 grenade traps, that when activated, will kill about 5 brutes per grenade placed, and he put 2 grenades in each trap and got more from the supply crates.

Then they came. The Brutes tripped all three traps at the same time, and killed 20 of them. Then the MG's opened up, and so did the luanchers, after the luanchers fired their volley, about a dozen more brutes lay with their guts hanging out, and various body parts littered the floor. After the volley, the troopers opened up with their own rifles depending on what that soldier personally chose for the mission.

They had also brought in a new A.I., named Patton, after the famous General in World War 2. He was busy hacking into the Covenant ship's data and found out that the name of the ship was called the _Rising Ascension, _and that they're base they set up is only 13 hallways acroos from the command room, but it was heavily guarded. After about 5 minutes, all that was left of the brute attack was remains of Brutes, ranging from disconnected torsos, some of which were still somehow alive, to dismembered body parts, scattered about the room. 5 or so brutes managed to escape the carnage, and went back to their own lines.

But sadly, they lost 17 ODST's from Brute Shots and Brute Plasma Rifles. "_Admiral, we may need some more weapons and ammunition if we meet another large scale attack like this." _

_"OK Master Chief, we are sending in another platoon and more munitions to the same landing bay, we are also sending in some barrels containing instacrete." _

_"Understood sir, but why instacrete?" _

_"Because Patton sent in a video feed to let me know whats going on over there, and you need a defendable postion incase you can't luanch an offensive quick enough." _

_"Yes sir, Spartan 117 over and out"_ Master Chief cut his comm. link and he and the ODST's waited for the Pelicans to arrive with their troops and cargo.

**A/N: So how do you like this so far? The battle with Truth is up next, and I _may_ introduce The Arbiter in the next chapter. Please read and review!**

**Also submit ideas for me and I might include them.**


	3. The Capture Of The Rising Ascension Pt2

**A/N: I have decided to introduce... The Arbiter, and Miranda Keyes, and Sergeant Johnson in this chapter. I hope you all like it. Oh yeah, please don't flame me for using Soulgard's Mirratord, as he gave me permission to use them for my story. So expect to see them. Oh yeah, I just read that the either the Arbiter or the Spec Ops Elite's name is Rtas 'Vadumee from on 5/17/2006! What, only two reviews? Oh well, here we go.**

**Chapter 3: Capture of the Rising Ascension Pt2**

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* * *

**

After a period of about 5 minutes, the other Pelicans arrived, and fresh troops, ammo, and other supplies arrived. Other wounded ODST's were also evacuated to the Cairo. After everyone loaded up on supplies, like ammo and guns if they wanted to switch weapons. So with the Master Chief and about 50 ODST's, they set off to attack the Brute positions. Master Chief was leading, with his new MA8B, and his trusty MA5B, and 8 frags.

Walking for about 2 minutes and passing through 2 corridors, they finally encountered a fortified position, consisting of a plasma turret, and 6 Brutes, along with 8 Jackals. The Chief primed, and threw a grenade over the shields that the Jackals use, and killed 4 of them. Then he fired a couple bursts from his AR, and downed a Brute. The Hell Jumpers started firing and throwing Grenades and killed the rest of the Jackals, and killed 4 other Brutes. Master Chief then switched to his MA8B and fired precision shots, and killed the other Brutes, except the one on the Plasma Turret, that of which, had killed about 7 soldiers already.

Then, faced with overwhelming odds, and seeing his comrades die so mercilessly, got off the turret, and went berserk. He crushed 4 other ODST's before being slaughtered by all of the incoming fire. They continued on after taking the names of who died.

* * *

"Come, Humans, we must reach the _Pride and Justice_ before anymore attacks come from the Jiralhanea" the Arbiter said "with Varu 'Hiraldee assaulting the Void Knight, I do not know is he has succeeded, but he has proved a match for even the De-" he refrained from saying Demon in the presence of the Humans, "-you're Master Chief." 

"Impressive, but still, I don't think that many would be able to capture an entire ship filled with Brutes" said Miranda Keyes. "Yes, well there is a bunch of Spec. Ops. on board with their camouflage on, he probably met up with them by now, and took over most, if not all, of the _Pride and Justice_" said the Arbiter. "If you don't mind, could we just hurry the hell up to that ship, and meet up with this Hiraldee character?" Johnson said. The Arbiter huffed in irritation at the Human's impatience, and nodded in agreement.

* * *

Varu 'Hiraldee, nicknamed 'Half-Jaw' throughout the Covenant, is viewed as a Spec Ops Commander throughout it. But is known by few, to be the famed Mirratord Second within the Sangheili High Council. He was having fun, by ripping out the guts of the cursed Jiralhanea, and decapitating them just as well. As he had just slain 2 more with his 2 single blades, he found out that 3 more Mirratord were on this ship as well, they were killing any of the scum who took over their ship, but were not trying to re-take the ship. 

He pondered the reason to this, as it would only take a team of two, working together, to take over a cruiser this big. "Perhaps they do not know that the others are still alive?" 'Hiraldee thought about this for a moment while slicing down some more Jiralhanea.

He contacted them over his shortwave communicator "_Brothers, why are you hiding in those rooms and not trying to cleanse this ship of these scum_?" he asked.

The response he got was "_Because, Second, we are only trainees, we do not have the capability of one that is on active duty_"

"_Ah, I see, but I will need you're help if we are to take back this ship, meet me in the engine room, and tell the rest of the trainees on this ship to do likewise_"

"_Yes, Excellency, you're order shall be completed" _

_"Good, now hurry, the Arbiter has agreed to meet me in here after he has slain Tartarus." _

During this conversation with his others, he paused to take a rest from his killing spree. He now hurried to Engineering, but he also enjoyed killing as much of the Jiralhanea as much as he possibly could.

* * *

The Master Chief luckily knew some hacking skills and was able to get the schematics for the ship. He noticed that the brig on this ship was one deck below them. He turned to his troops and said 

"I pulled up the schematics for this ship, and I found out that the holding cells are only one deck below us, and that there is a gravity lift one hallway away from this position. Now they might have some of our marines in there, so we are going to check it out." Captain Wellow said to his ODST's "10 of you stand guard here and make sure that no one gets past, and get a turret or 2 up here, the rest of you follow the Master Chief."

They all nodded in agreement, and went about they're duties. Master Chief then mowed down another defending Brute squad with the help of the Shock Troopers, and continued to the Grav lift. They went down it and towards the brig, but found it lightly guarded. When he entered, he was astonished, for what he saw was not beaten Marines, but imprisoned Elites, Grunts, and even a pair of Hunters.

He told the Hell Jumpers to guard outside so he could find out what had happened to them, and they reluctantly agreed. He then looked for an Elite with gold or white armor, as they are usually the highest ranking ones in a ship. He found a gold armored one, and he spoke to the Elite.

"Why are you and the Grunts and Hunters locked up in jail cells, while the Drones, Brutes, and Jackals continue to be free with the Prophets?"

Then it was the Elite's turn to speak "because we have found the truth about the Halos, and we have told all of our crew, before the others and the Prophet of Truth had loaded onto the ship. The Prophet has imprisoned my brothers, and our allies, and it seems that, from what I can tell, the Prophets are denouncing us Sangheili, Unggoy, and Lekgolo are no longer worthy of the Covenant, and have considered us as enemies to The Great Journey. We will help you if you want us, but we will not expect you to try and save one of us if we are about to die, and the same to you're kind."

"_That would explain why I saw all of the Elites, Grunts, and Hunters, fighting the Brutes, Drones, and Jackals on High Charity. But why has this happened?" _he wondered. So he asked the Elite "why has this happened? What has caused the Prophets to hate you're kind?"

"We do not know, all we know, is that the Prophets have cast down the Sangheili, in favor of the Jiralhanea" the gold Elite said. "Perhaps The Arbiter has the answer, but now, we want to fight against the Prophets and Jiralhanea, who have shattered our honor, and to pay our debt to you Humans, whom we have mercilessly slaughtered."

The Chief said "I have told the other soldiers here, and they have agreed to help you, but if you have any 'friendly fire', we will kill you and you're followers. But all you have to do is survive long enough so you can meet up with our Admiral, and set up an alliance, at least temporarily." The Elite nodded in agreement, and Chief pressed a button on the pedestal in the center of the room.

Everyone who could, got out, and looked at their superior, unsure of what to do. The Elite apparently told them to not attack the Humans, and there was a temporary alliance, because some of the Elites had disdainful and disgusted looks upon their faces. The Chief smirked inside his helmet, and knew that this would be difficult, and that they would have to trust each other for this alliance to last out.

* * *

By the time that 'Hiraldee had made it to engineering, he had killed over three dozen more Jiralhanea with his twin single blades. When he got there, he saw that out of the ship's compliment of 10, there were only 7 of the Mirratord Trainees here. "Where are the other 3?" he asked. 

"The others were executed by the Jiralhanea because they chose poor hiding spots, but luckily, they did not reveal anything about the Mirratord." One of the Trainees said.

"That is sad, but we must be moving along to conquer the rest of this ship. I have already cleared decks 15--7, I contacted you after the 7th, and this is deck 5. We must make an assault on the control room, and take the ship. We can clear up any of the filth once The Arbiter and his allies get back." said 'Hiraldee.

"What! A new Arbiter was chosen! When?"

"Right after the destruction of the first Halo, But now instead of helping the Prophets, he is helping us on our way to victory. But that is not important right now. Come, brothers, and let us retake the rest of this ship!" They all gave a roar of approval, and turned their active cloaking on and continued through the ship, towards the control room, undetected.

* * *

They radioed for a Phantom, boarded it, and told the pilot to get to the _Pride and Justice_. The pilot complied, and in kind, they felt the rumble of the ship's engines on their feet. Johnson saw the Arbiter, and went over to him. "So when we get to the _Pride and Justice_, we should be able to find your friend named 'Hiraldee?" 

The Arbiter nodded, and hoped that he had taken control of at least the landing bays, if not all of the ship. In 5 minutes, they had reached one of the landing bays, docked, and departed the drop ship they had just taken.

"Hurry! Time is of the essence and we must reach the control room. I'm sure that 'Hiraldee was able to clear most of the ship by now, but still, we must be cautious." Said the Arbiter.

The Sergeant added "well its about damn time we did something around here." The Commander was about to berate the Sergeant, but then they came across 3 Jiralhanea wondering around the halls, and each one was quickly cut down under a barrage of fire. They continued onwards to the control room.

* * *

The Chief soon found out from the former Ship Master of the Forerunner ship, knew how to get to the Prophet of Truth, without causing too much disturbance. And it was conveniently in a corridor with no camera access. But, for such a thing to succeed, he told his detachment of Hell Jumpers to go back to the base on the ship, and await for orders. 

They started to object, but were quickly cut off by Captain Wellow. After they finally agreed, they headed out, leaving the Chief, and his new-found friends to deal with. The Ship Master told his troops, with the exception of the Ultras, to stay put. "C'mon. lets go kill a Prophet" Chief said.

The 4 Elites nodded, and they silently made their way to the hallway they talked about. Withstanding the fact that they met two more picket patrols, they made it there relatively fast. They cleared the deserted hallway in 2 minutes, and were standing at the door. It was locked.

The Elite spoke "This does not make sense; these doors are always opened, even if there was an AI onboard. But, you Humans are able to make exemplary A.I.s, did you Humans happen to bring one along with you?"

This time it was the Chief's turn to speak, "Yes, hold on while I contact him." The Elite told his comrades, and they nodded, ad talked to each other silently.

"_Patton, why have you locked the doors that I'm at_?"

The response he got was "_I thought that they would start to use it as an attack route, as there are no cameras at your position_."

"_Well, open the doors, cut the lights, and cut power to the lights in the control room, and make it so that the light above each enemy is lit so they won't get used to the dark." _

"_Yes sir, commencing_."

He then told the four Elites standing around him what was about to happen, and they nodded and got out their personal Energy Blades. John got out his own, quickly checked the charge, and thought he had a sufficient amount of power left in it. Suddenly, the doors opened, and the Elites and Chief charged through the room.

They found several brutes stupidly staring around, wondering what had happened to the lights. Soon, their thoughts were put to rest as the Ultras and Chief cut through them. The Chief found it a bit irritating that he could not keep up with the graceful warriors as they cut down the Brutes, one by one. Chief found Truth still waiting for the inevitable, in the center of the room. He quickly advanced to him, from behind.

Satisfied that the Prophet did not recognize his exact location in the room, he proceeded to life Truth off of his gravity chair. The Prophet became extremely startled, and began shouting.

"_Patton, turn on all lights, and tell the Hell Jumpers to get here quickly, but they are not to attack any Ex-Covenant member_" the Chief stated calmly.

"_Yes sir" _was the reply.

Then, the lights came on, and revealed the slaughtering of the Ultras. Bodies lay everywhere without their heads, some of them in half, or just torn apart completely.

"You! You dare disgrace the Forerunners by taking over this ship?" The Prophet started to yell incoherently, and started to regain his composure.

"Hold on now, we have done nothing to harm you're Covenant, but then you attacked Harvest. Without reason, and without cause. What has Humanity done to deserve this?" John asked. The Elites listened intently trying to also find out why.

The Prophet spoke "You are an affront to the Forerunners. You're kind has done nothing but strip every planet you colonize of its natural beauty with you're disgusting cities. There are to many reasons to even list! We--"

John cut off Truth, "Do not forget Mr. High and Mighty, that you have done this as well with the planets you use to build all of you're technology you'reselves. Oh wait, I forgot, you don't even know enough to come up with you're own technology do you? You copied everything you have from the forerunners. Not to mention you've hidden most of it away from the rest of the Covenant, especially the Elites. I have long since been fighting them, and I respect them at least, whilst you just sit on you're gravity chairs, and feed them religious bullshit about the Halos, Great Journey, and anything about the Forerunners."

The Elites then visibly flinched at the hearing of the Great Journey being fake, but previous knowledge has made them accept that what this Human was saying was right.

"Treachery!" The Prophet started to plead with the Elites, and Chief, before systematically recieving a left hook to his chin, that made him shut up. The Hell Jumpers arrived right after the punch, and saw the Chief along with the Elites. Talking amongst themselves, they took seats along the wall watching what was happening.

The Chief then decided to land another strength-enhanced blow to the Prophet, and felt some of his ribs break under the force.

Truth then started to gasp in pain "you will not recieve any mercy from me, or anyone else for that matter for the pain and suffering you have caused." Chief said. So he landed another punch to his face, and felt his skull crack, and finally Truth gave out a last moan of pain, and died. he opened a comm. channel to Admiral Hood _"Sir, I have located and killed the Prophet of Truth. This ship, is ours_." Master Chief waited for a reply.

"_Acknowledged Master Chief, we are going to send in 2 more platoons, ammo, supplies, and anything else you might want? _The Admiral said with an elated tone. He had not been this happy since before the war started.

_"Yes sir. There appears to have been an uprising within the Covenant. The Elites, Grunts, and Hunters are appeared to have been exiled it, and the resulting forces left on this ship, has agreed to an allaince." _

The Admiral was shocked, as well as the bridge crew, and waited for the Admiral. "_We'll send in another Pelican for them and yourself, we shall discuss this onboard the Cairo while we send in more troops to clear out the ship of remaining unwanted guests." _

_"Yes sir_."

* * *

**A/N: Finally, Truth dies. Beware of new technologies surfacing within the next week or so of me updating my profile. I would like to thank you all who like this story, and I respect the opinions of those who don't. Please give me some suggestions, I am running out of ideas for where this story is going, although I have the ending of part one formulated in my head somewhere. This story will have at least two 'books' you could say to it. Thats it for this chapter! Until next time.  
**


	4. Reclaiming our Glory

**A/N: The reason I am going to skip the interrogation on the Ex-Covenant is pretty simple. I have no idea on how I would go about it. If I get an idea on how to work it out later, I might edit the chapter. Please help me come up with a name for my new tank, because I'm pretty sure that you don't want to read M812B over and over again in the next chapter. Well, enjoy.**

**  
Chapter 4: Reclaiming our Glory**

The Arbiter led the remaining Sangheili and Humans down the corridors until they reached the deck below the 'bridge' as the Humans called it. He let them rest for a moment before continuing. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the two Humans talking to each other. He couldn't quite hear what they were saying. He the saw the bodies of a few of Jiralhanea. "Everyone, gather your gear, its time to go to the command room" said the Arbiter.

* * *

'Hiraldee and the trainees made their way through the halls and finnally made it to the bridge. Going through the doors, they were surprised to see that the Arbiter and a few Ultras, plus the Humans, were already there.

"Arbiter, I see you are faster than I thought. Perhaps you care to enlighten me about Tartarus" asked the Spec Ops Commander. He noticed the two Humans with weapons, but decided not to mention it.

"Yes, the Jiralhanea Chieftain and his guards were defeated. His first son was sent to attack the Human home world, so there is currently no leader for them. The Sergeant here helped me kill the Chieftain by taking down his shields." He motioned towards Johnson.

The Spec Ops Commander looked down at the Human. Then the sergeant spoke. "The Master Chief is still on that city of yours. We need to go get him and return to Earth."

"Yes, we must. Trainees go and take positions on the ship systems. I will take control." Said the Arbiter. "First, set a course for High Charity, engine output at 100 percent." "Yes, Arbiter, we will arrive at High Charity in approximately 1 and one half units."

* * *

Miranda asked the sergeant, "Do you think the Chief is still alive?" "Hell, knowing him, yeah. He's probably kickin' some Prophet's ass and makin' him feel silly right about now." Answered Johnson.

They felt a lurch as the ship moved through the ring world's atmosphere. After 15 minutes or so minutes, they arrived at the former symbol of glory and power for the Covenant. Now it was covered by a thick, green layer of flood spores. And it also had several holes in the domed section, presumably from the battle of the Brute and Elite Ship Masters.

They watched as the Arbiter walked over to them and said "we are sending in two Phantoms to the city's surface, we would like for you to come with us, Sergeant."

"Thought you'd never ask. Just show me an armory, and I'll go anywhere you want." "Very well, follow me this way" said the Arbiter.

When they got there, Johnson found that the ship somehow had an exceptionally large cache of Human weaponry. "Why do you have so much UNSC ordnance?" Questioned Johnson.

The Arbiter replied, "They work much better than our plasma weaponry and technology. The bullets, I believe they are called, go through flesh and bone, enabling us to kill the cursed parasite. Plasma takes much longer, as it has to melt through its decrepit skin and sometimes armor, making it takes much longer to kill it."

The Sergeant then proceeded to exchange his beam rifle for an AR, an M6D pistol, twelve magazines of ammunition each, and 6 fragmentation grenades. After, he and the Arbiter walked off towards the Phantom. They used the miniature grav lift, and took in what the strike teams of 8 Spec Ops Elites weapons were using as weapons. A few had Carbines, others had BR55s, and they last two he saw even had rocket launchers. But they all had the same secondary weapon, a Plasma Sword.

"The Spec Ops Commander is in the other Phantom. They have three of your machine turrets on board. Oh yes, I forgot to mention, we have replaced these two Phantom's plasma turrets with the turrets found on the nose of your pelican drop ships. So do not be surprised."

"That will help us a lot with the Flood. But what about the city's automated defenses?" Inquired the Sergeant.

"Arbiter, come here and see this" said the communications officer aboard the Phantom. The Arbiter walked over to the console. He heard a transmission that was coming through.

_"Any UNSC forces in the area, this is the A.I. Cortana. Please respond on the D-Band radio frequency." "_Sergeant! Come here quickly!" Called the Arbiter

Yeah, what is it Arbiter?" Said Johnson"Listen to this transmission." After the message played through again, the sergeant's eyes widened. "Patch me through on that signal."

_"Cortana, where is the Chief?" _Asked the sergeant_. "He went with the Prophet of Truth's Forerunner ship. I wanted to stay here incase the Flood found a way off the ring and this city." _

_"Well, we should come and get you then. Handle the auto defenses where we're gonna land, and we'll extract you."_

_"No, to dangerous. Gravemind might figure out how to stop a remote detonation. And the best chances I can give you for a timed one, is 2 minutes and 30 seconds." _Said Cortana.

_"Well I like those odds." _The Sergeant said._ "But we need you at Earth; you are to valuable to be destroyed. Plus, when we do go back to Earth. we need to prove that this new, although unofficial, alliance is real."_

_"Very well Sergeant, but I advise you, you need to hurry. Gravemind is probing through my data banks and breaking through my defenses. I have a limited time before it's necessary to destroy the city and the ring just to stop him from doing this."_

"Yeah, alright." He answered. "Let's get ready for this Arbiter. Good thing I brought an AI carrier."

"Yes it is. Warriors, we must extract the Human construct, and evacuate the city. It will be destroyed after we depart."

The two Phantoms arrived at the landing bay. When everyone got out, they heard the unearthly scream of the Flood and encountered a fierce resistance of infection and combat forms. The Elites set up the MG turrets they brought, and started tearing apart everything they set their sights on. Then the rocket launcher started firing. The Flood opened up with their weapons too. A rocket flew right by the sergeant's head. "Son of a bitch that was close!" He exclaimed. He then returned to firing at the combat forms with a steady staccato form of shooting. The Elites with carbines were shooting with a good degree of accuracy. A rocket detonated in the middle of a pack of Flood that were getting to close for their own good, and blew them apart. Green gore and decayed body parts littered the floor everywhere. Then, a combat form with surprisingly bad aim, fired a rocket that impacted with a decorated pillar on a grav beam. It fell over and crushed the entire back row. But some of the Elites were running out of ammo for their carbines and other various weapons, and switched to their energy swords. They called the Phantoms for support. They swept in with the refitted MG turrets, and wiped out the stragglers. And they dumped an ammo crate behind them.

They hurried for ammunition incase of another attack. Johnson and the Arbiter ran to the other end of the docking bay. "Hello Sergeant and you Arbiter." Said Cortana.

"Greetings, Construct. Please, make haste. I do not wish to be here very much longer." Responded the Arbiter.

"Yes, OK. Sergeant, do you have the carrier?" She asked. "What? Oh, yeah, its right here."

"OK, please take me out of this holopad and put me into the carrier." "Alright. Hang on a second." He answered.

Johnson took out the hard chip, and put it into the armored AI carrier. "It feels good to be in some UNSC equipment again." She said.

* * *

"Alright, let's go back to the ship." Said the Sergeant. They all boarded the two Phantoms, and waited to be back on the ship. When they got to the docking bay, they all got out. "Congratulations, Arbiter and Sergeant Johnson, on a mission success! No casualties either!" Exclaimed 'Hiraldee.

"Yes it was. But now we have a new problem. What shall the collective races of the Sangheili, Unggoy, and Lekgolo call ourselves?" The Arbiter asked.

"Hmmm. How about, The Reclaiming Glory?" 'Hiraldee questioned.

"That might work. But we need to agree with the rest of our forces, and the Humans about the alliance." Answered the Arbiter.

"Yes, true. But we need to go and rally the remaining Sangheili controlled ships over to here."

"Sergeant Johnson, let you're construct in our ships systems. I'm sure it will help us with anything we need." The Arbiter requested.

"Yeah OK. Give me a second." He responded.

Johnson took out Cortana's memory ship and put it into one of the holo pedestals. "Construct, please send out a signal to any Sangheili controlled ships to rally here."

"Please say you're message now." "All ships that are in Sangheili control please rally at High Charity." "Message sent. I'm sure you will not want to miss out on the explosion Johnson?" She asked.

"Oh! I almost forgot. Arbiter and 'Hiraldee, would you like to see Halo and High Charity explode?" He asked.

"Very well, it will be good to see that cursed ring die." "Yes, me too." They both answered. "Construct, please get 2 of the big monitors focused on the ring and High Charity." The Arbiter asked. He then saw to of the screens flicker to life. They showed High Charity exploding in a gigantic ball of blue and red flame which quickly burned out in space. Then the city tilted towards the ring and crashed into it. Pieces of the ring world were crashing into still intact parts, creating more destruction. The remaining large sections of the ring slowly burned themselves out, still rotating. High Charity was no more.

**A/N: the Ex-Covenant get a name, one that I hope you all like. Cortana gets saved, and we are ever closer to an official alliance. Keep reading and reviewing. Please, it helps to know that someone out there likes the story.**


	5. Represent

**A/N:I'm sorry I couldn't get the Raptor into this chapter, but its just hard to fit it into here right now. Rest assured, it will be in the story, just not now. On another note, I started up a small forum for questions, ideas, and possible advice from other authors to help me write better plotlines and all of that great stuff. Writer's block comes out easily enough, and I have scrapped many ideas for what happens in this chapter, so I just hope you enjoy what I have for now.**

**Chapter 5: Represent**

* * *

Fleet Master Baru 'Sotoramee had just heard the transmission from the Arbiter and told his remaining ships to follow him and converge on to the Arbiter's position near High Charity. Out of the original 150 ships plus support craft, he now had just over 60 remaining due to the suicidal tactics of the enemy, and luckily only some of the support craft were destroyed in the previous engagement with Jiralhanea controlled vessels.

In the void of black, a portal of interdimensional space opened up, and 64 ships and support craft made their way to High Charity in perfect fromation. The same was happening with two other fleets containing counselers, Mirratord, and other high ranking personnel.

* * *

While the Arbiter, numerous Sangheili, and the two Humans were anxiously waiting for something to happen, Cortana interupted their thoughts.

"Arbiter, I have three slipspace ruptures, each containing a sizable force of ships. One at 3 o'clock, another at 10 o'clock, and the last one at 7 o'clock. I can find out how many ships are in each group if you like." She finished.

"Very well construct, how many are there?"

"The first group has 64 plus numerous support craft, the second has 127 ships and small amounts of support, and the third group has 150 ships and complete support." She answered. About one minute in Human time, he could see the three fleets all in formation. "Incoming transmissions from all three Fleet Masters"

"Put them all up on each moniter, and make it so that we can all talk to each other instead of just me."

A series of moniters turned on and three Sangheili in gold armor appeared on each screen. "Arbiter, what has happened to the Sacred Ring and High Charity!" One of them demanded.

"It seems that not all is that it is, old friend. As we have found out from the monitor of this ring world, Halo is designed to kill everything except those in designated 'Sanctuaries' to stop the spread of the Parasite. And the Prophets knew about this, they had their own sanctuary located within the Forerunner ship that powered High Charity. They wanted to activate the rings and become rulers of the universe."

This outraged the three Fleet Masters. While they heavily distrusted the Prophet's judgement frequently, they were shocked to hear that the Great Journey did not exist. They demanded proof of this discovery, and the Arbiter had the two Monitors tell them anything they wanted to know. After all of this, the shock had mostly worn off, and they returned to their discussion.

The Arbiter re-entered the conversation "So now you all have the details, we have a new item of discussion. We are going to have to ally with the Humans if we are to survive this conflict. I have here by my side two of them, and please give them respect, one of them has given me aid in killing the Chieftan of the Jiralhanea, Tartarus. And I also owe my life to him while I killed Tartarus." The Arbiter pointed to male Human.

"Very well, but I would not think that the Humans would want to become allies after three cycles of destruction." Replied 'Sotoramee.

Then the female Human entered the discussion. "I believe that an alliance would help out both of our races. Ours is holding back the enemy Covenant fleet as best they can, with a defence fleet of over 250 ships, plus over 300 orbital platforms. The enemy attacked with 300 ships, so there is a good chance that we aren't losing. If what you're Arbiter says is true, than you might not have very many ships left, and we could help each other out as best we can."

"Yes, human, I can agree with you on that, but 300 ships is only a fraction of the fleet, there are many more ships that the Prophets control. This alliance must not fail if we are to survive." One of the Fleet Masters agreed.

"Arbiter, can we go to our home planet to help out now?" Miranda asked.

"Yes, if we all agree, it is time to go to the Human home world." The Arbiter waited for anyone to speak up. The he said "Tell all of you're crew and any personnel what happened here and what we talked about. We shall wait for one and one half units before leaving, so gather you're fleets into formation."

And with that, the screens turned off, and from the view ports they could see the fleets gathering. Then Cortana made an announcement.

"Arbiter, I can make the Plasma Cannons on this ship more powerful shots, not to mention more accurate, if you want me to. But be warned, you only get one shot per charge rather than 3."

"Very well, after you reconfigure the guns, send over the data you used to every ship with the message of what it does. Tell the Ship Masters what it does, and make their Engineers do what they have to to make it work."

"OK, message sent, and this ship now has upgraded cannons." Cortana appeared on the holopedestal now, " Incoming transmission, the Fleet Masters say this will take one additional unit to accomplish. We can leave for Earth in 2 units, or 20 minutes."

The Arbiter nodded, and asked how long it would be until they got there.

"It should only be 138 units, or 23 hours until we arrive." Cortana replied.

Miranda told Cortana to arrive behind the asteroid belt, otherwise they risk being shot down before they were able to establish their intentions to the fleet. Cortana complied, and gave coordinates to the three fleets. 10 minutes later, a hole opened in space, and 341 ships and support craft entered it, bound for the Sol System.

* * *

The Master Chief and three of the obviously high ranking Elites got on board the Pelican and departed for the Cairo. After they got off, the Chief saw that there were over 20 Marines gaurding the docking bay, some with the older .50 caliber turrets, other with rifles, and even a team of snipers just in case. The snipers were once again using a different rifle than the S2 AMs that are standard, the Chief was curious about it and hoped to test fire it later in the firing range.

Four Hell Jumpers, all holding shotguns, came over and talked to the Chief. "Master Chief, sir. We are here to escort you and you're... friends over to the detention center. After that, we'll have the pleasure of guard duty, when we get there, you are required to go to Hood and tell him what happened while you were having fun out there."

The Chief nodded, and beckoned the Elites to follow the escorts. While they were walking towards the brig, soldiers walking by, and others that were resting gave varying looks at the Elites. Some of which were rude, others curious, and some bewildered, but most were angry. The three Elites began talking to each other in their native language, so Chief didn't understand what they were saying. The translators that the UNSC had only worked with their main speech, which was Covenant Standard.

After the Hell Jumpers and the Elites were at the brig, Master Chief turned and went to the elevator. After he arrived at the proper level, he took the tram over to the bridge where Lord Hood was located at. He stepped inside and gave the Admiral a salute. The Admiral returned it, and began talking to Chief.

"So, Master Chief. I would like to know what has happened since you're dissapearence when the Covenant first attacked." Hood started.

"Well, after we made the jump to follow Regret's ship, we found another Halo. Then after we landed--" the Admiral interupted.

"Did you just say another Halo? I thought you destroyed it."

"Yes sir, as I found out from the second ring world, there are seven rings in total. Each with an estimated 25,000 light-year radius, and combined, can take out the entire galaxy. With one ring already destroyed, and the second probably destroyed, it should be nearing half of it's original power now."

"Wait, you said probably destroyed? Why only probably?"

"I had to leave Cortana on the Covenant city in order to destroy it and the ring incase the Flood found a way to power the city back up and make an attack anywhere they want."

"Very well, please continue on what happened during you're absence."

"Yes sir. As I was saying, after we landed we established a base after clearing out a small complex that the Covenant held. After about 3 hours, we launched an assault on another piece of real estate that we wanted, and it turned out that that is where the Prophet of Regret holed up. After I killed him, the Covenant decided they wanted to bury me alive in plasma, and bombarded the facility. I jumped off of the structure into the lake that surrounded it."

"So now we have finnally killed one of their leadership. Hmmm, continue on Chief."

Chief then told Lord Hood what happened with Gravemind, ending up in High Charity, the In Amber Clad's crash landing in the city, the Flood, what happened to the Prophet of Mercy, and leaving Cortana behind. Hood stood there, taking it all in, and told the Chief to go to the armory to get used to the new weapons.

"Oh, and Master Chief, there is a couple people you might know that are in the armory." Hood told him.

"Yes sir." Master Chief then saluted, and turned around towards the armory.

* * *

**A/N: Like I said, the tank is in the next chapter, so don't worry. Things are starting to develop, and most people should be able to figure some of the things that will happen next. Visit my profile for more info.**


	6. Reinforcements

**A/N: Sixth Installment here. Not much else to say except when your done reading, review. I apologize if this chapter seems rushed. I wanted to get one last one out before my break. And a late happy Bungie 7th day.  
**

**Chapter 6: Reinforcements**

**

* * *

**

"Arbiter, we'll arrive in the Sol system in 13 minutes." Cortana announced.

Everyone in their battle group approved the use of Human time over Covenant time because it is more accurate.

"OK, thank you construct." The Arbiter answered. He told all onboard personnel and everyone in the combined fleets to get ready for entry of the Human's home system.

"Please, call me Cortana. I'm not just an object you know..."

"Very well, Cortana." _This construct certainly is more than I thought. If only our AIs were given personalities, it would at least make them interesting_ the Arbiter thought.

"Cortana, when we exit slip space, I want a channel open with Admiral Hood. After we finish talking I want to survey all of the damage that's been done." Miranda told the AI.

"Yes ma'am. Give me a minute after we get there."

10 minutes later, the ships exited the void of slip space, and appeared just before the asteroid belt that marked the kill zone of the defense platforms.

* * *

"Sir" Templar announced. "Sir, we have new contacts, 341 Covenant ships plus over 70 support frigates. Our repairs are almost done, but, we can't replace over 40 stations in a heartbeat." 

"Damn. I knew they would return, just not this fast. Where are they now?" Hood questioned.

"They're just beyond the asteroid belt, out of the kill zone. Wait... They're sending out a message to us. It's on our own D-Band channel." The AI replied in a surprised tone.

"Put it up on the main screen." The admiral answered with an equally surprised voice.

The main screen, overlooking the entire bridge flickered on. But what the aging Admiral saw shocked him. It was Commander Miranda Keyes and Sergeant Major Avery J. Johnson. He also saw a few Elites walking behind the two, raising even more questions for the Admiral.

"Mind telling what you two are doing there, Commander?"

_"Yes sir. It seems that the Elites, Grunts, and Hunters have been exiled from the Covenant. They wish to seek out an alliance with us in order to help us out. They also purposed a technology exchange in order to make you trust them."_

The statement shocked the entire bridge. Never had they captured any technology from the Covenant besides field weapons, and now they were receiving it as a gift for an alliance.

"Well... Let me speak to whoever is in charge there."

The Admiral saw an Elite in armor he had never seen before. He assumed that was their leader and started to talk.

"I'm wondering... Why do you want our help? For the past 30 plus years, all you've done is destroy our colonies, and kill civilians. What makes you think you can just waltz in here after 30 years' destruction, and become friends with us?"

_"We want you're help because our fleets are equally destroyed. I assume that you lost a lot of ships, and have reinforcements coming in from any of you're planets that have not been 'glassed' as you call it."_

"Yes we do." Hood replied with an exasperated sigh. "But still, you haven't answered the main question."

_"Giving you our shield technology and specifications to our plasma cannons will fuel the want of an alliance because we will be able to push the false Prophets back to their own home world. We can destroy anyone who wishes to lengthen the war with new technology. And you're AI Cortana; she has provided us with data that makes the plasma cannons fire more powerful and precise shots._"

"Cortana is with you? Let me speak to her."

_"Very well. Please wait."_ Then Cortana appeared on the massive screen in front of the Admiral.

"Cortana, what is the meaning of giving the enemy better weaponry.?"

_"Well they agreed whole-heartedly to an alliance after that, so with the benefit of them giving us the same technology that has made it nearly impossible to win a space battle with them, I would imagine that I could imply the data in our own plasma cannons. In fact, I have already designed and tested one plasma cannon of my own creation in the data world."_ Cortana replied.

"Well, I'll agree to an alliance, but what is their leader's name, and what do they call themselves?"

_"His name is the Arbiter, and they call themselves The Reclaiming Glory. Anything else, Admiral?_"

"Yes, tell this Arbiter, to gather 5 more of his kind, and send a drop ship over here containing them. No weapons allowed. You three can come along as well.

_"Yes sir."_ Cortana said, and the screen went blank.

* * *

Master Chief walked for ten minutes before finding the doors to the armory. Because the Cairo was the commanding defense platform for his sector of Earth, it also had it's own training grounds in the armory. Complete with any and all weapons the UNSC manufactured, and even a fleet of Warthogs and Scorpions to test driving skills and for the tanks, coordination tactics for land battles. 

He walked through the doors, and to his great surprise and happiness, he found what remained of the original Spartans IIs familiarizing themselves with the new weapons and remembering the feel of the ones they used to use.

Linda had her trusty customized S2AM Sniper Rifle, and slung the new one that he had seen when he got on board the Cairo on her back. Will had the new assault rifle and the trusty MA5B. He was trying out the new one to see how good it is. Fred was sticking to the basic weapons he was trained with; the MA5B, and the M6D.

The Chief nodded his head and put his two fingers up to where his mouth would be, signifying a smile. The other three returned the gesture, and returned to shooting holo-targets. He walked towards Fred and asked him what's been happening since he's been at Delta Halo.

Fred told him about the battle, out of 250 ships and 300 platforms, they lost 103 ships and 49 platforms, but they completely destroyed all of the enemy fleet. Which had over 200 ships of its own.

"But that didn't happen until you showed up" he said. "When that Forerunner ship broadcasted that you were on their ship, all of the others started to try and escape the kill zone. I don't know why. But it let our forces were able to pick them off one at a time because of the Hindenburg. It launched 3 of it's Shiva Nukes and each detonated in strategic parts of their fleet, causing all of their shields to go out and destroying a large portion of them." Fred finished.

The Chief thought this over for a minute. Then he went to take the two new weapons that were in the stores. The Chief went to the firing pit and noticed how the MA8B sounded. It had a built in silencer so it was like a hiss for every shot taken. It was more accurate then his old favorite, and with the addition of the Battle Rifle's type of scope, he was able to make 5 shots in quick succession in the shape of a pentagon. He looked on the bottom area of the barrel and saw that it also featured a laser scope.

He un slung the new sniper rifle and put down the new AR. He fired it twice, and even with a shorter barrel, it had the same degree of accuracy of the standard one. It packed more of a powerful kick to his shoulder plate due to the heavier round over the S2AM, but to the Spartan, it wasn't even noticeable. He picked up the two weapons, and placed them back on the shelves he found them on.

He told his fellow Spartans that he was going to the motor pool to see what this new tank he heard about was. They nodded and followed him over there to make sure he didn't damage too much equipment.

They found their leader climbing into one of the new Raptor tanks. Although usually requiring at least four personnel, incase of emergency situations, it was still operable by the driver incase of the gunner and the tank commander dieing. In which case it would just be a more powerful Scorpion because of only one occupant being able to drive it and shoot it.

They watched in mild interest as the Chief found out how to shoot the cannon, as they heard a resonated boom throughout the cavernous room. The techs in the room sighed. Now they had to repair a lot of wiring and replace plating after the Chief would finish his fun.

Master Chief drove the tank out of its parking space and drove through the vehicle training area. He wasn't used to using monitors bolted to the wall to be able to see out of a tank, but eventually he would. After shooting the cannon and putting the tank through its paces, he backed it back into its own spot. He climbed out from the hatch, and surveyed the damage he did.

Various sized holes covering every wall, somehow managing to get a few holes in the ceiling from orientation. Some spots of the room were dark because the shells had blown through a lot of wiring, which caused half of the lights to go out. MG bullets riddled the walls and floor. More than a few of the obstacles on the course were destroyed. The twenty or so techs that were in the room hurried to record the damage, and called the supply office for the necessary equipment.

Five minutes of waiting, and the arc welders, various cutting torches, and anything else they needed were delivered at the door. They went over and sorted through everything, and distributed what they needed. Master Chief and his fellow Spartans walked off to their ready room for sparring and whatever else their needs may be.

* * *

The Arbiter cut off the comm. link to the defense platform. He looked at the monitors to see what happened in the battle. Wrecked hulks of once proud vessels were floating about. Molten slag's of grey coupled with cleanly sliced off sections of Covenant ships from multiple MAC rounds crashed into each other, creating more debris to clean up. 

Then he went to the intercom and said something in his native language. 5 minutes later, two other Sangheili walked into the room. Each wearing an armor type never exposed to the Humans. One was a councilor, and the other one was an Honor Guard Captain, wearing a blue tinged armor rather than red, for the regular honor guards.

He greeted each one by placing his right hand on their left shoulders. After telling Cortana to open a comm. channel to the fleet, he talked more in his native language.

A few more minutes passed, and in walked Baru 'Sotoramee and Dosu and Daso 'Furnumee. Famous for their tenacity in battle and loyalty to each other. They greeted, and them, the Humans, and the AI went for the docking bay.

The Sergeant took Cortana out of the pedestal and followed them. After a five minute Phantom trip, they got off, and found themselves surrounded by sniper teams, machine guns, and various riflemen. The same procedure for the Master Chief's Ex-Covenant forces applied here as well. The Sergeant, Miranda, and Cortana headed for the bridge, ready to tell the Admiral what happened.

The Arbiter and his companions followed the MPs to the brig after the other two Humans parted. When he got there, he recognized the two other Sangheili. He didn't remember their names, but he knew they used to be on the _Rising Ascension_. He nodded as he passed. He was led into one of the jail cells and was told to wait for the Admiral. He suddenly remembered, the Honor Guard Captain was named Viro 'Milunee. And the Councilor's name was Nola 'Klazumee.

* * *

The Admiral and all four Spartans were walking through the halls after he told Miranda and Johnson to go get some R & R. Soon he arrived at the detention block. The guards nodded in the direction of the Ex-Covenant, calling themselves, The Reclaiming Glory. 

He opened the cells of the Elites and told them to follow him. They arrived at the tertiary conference room. Such a room was only used for major occurrences. It had four M249s, each one in a corner of the room, and operated by their own AI, but the AI was only an aiming enhancer. The Admiral stepped behind the table and sat down where the other high ranking personnel of the United Nations Space Command, Office of Naval Intellegence, and United Earth Government were.

The Elites stepped towards the chairs, and looked at them. To their relief, they were form fitting instead of shaped for just humans. All eight of them sat down. One of the ONI officials started the interrogation. The Spartans took up positions in front of the doorway.

"Names and ranks." The Admiral said.

The first Elite stood up, "I am Councilor Nola 'Klazumee, I am a member of the Elite High council."

He sat down and the Elite next to him got up. "I am Honor Guard Captain Viro 'Milunee. I used to protect the Prophet of Peace."

Then the Arbiter got up. "I am the Arbiter. I command The Reclaiming Glory's military forces. I the former commander of the Fleet of Particular Justice."

Then one with gold armor stood up. "I am Baru 'Sotoramee. I am the Fleet Master of the fleet The Fury of The Sangheili."

Another Elite got up. "I am Dosu 'Furnumee. I am the fleet Master of the fleet The Prophet's Destruction."

The next Elite got up. "I am Daso 'Furnumee. I command the fleet The Ultimate Vengeance. The names of the fleets we have named, except for the Arbiter's previous command, are what we named them after we found out the truth."

The 7th Elite stood. "I am Zamo 'Komaree. I am Special Operations Commander."

The last Elite stood up. "I am Maru 'Parumee. I am also a Special Operations Commander." He took his seat after he finished.

"Why have you come before us?"

"We wish to seek an alliance with you in order to defeat what is left of the Covenant. We seek revenge against the Prophet's misguidance." Answered the Arbiter

"Just what makes you think that we want you're help?" A man with the nametag Ackerson sneered.

"We will follow you're commands, and we will support you in any way possible. We will defend you're home world with a full fleet if necessary. We have dropped the ways of the Prophets, and we now will help fight for the right cause" Councilor 'Klazumee said.

A man in the UEG section said "Does that answer you're question, _colonel_? I advise you, you are only allowed in this meeting because you have certain... connections. Those of which are being tracked 24/7, I might add. If you have another outburst like that, you _will_ be removed from this meeting."

Ackerson grumbled for a minute and went silent.

"Now that the interuptions have ceased, we can continue on. Arbiter, I heard that you offered us technology in order to seal the agreement?" The UEG man asked.

"Yes I did. I officially offer your forces our plasma cannon technology, and our shield technology. With them, we could crush the false Prophets and whoever may follow them."

"Very good. But, what made you see the error of you're ways, I wonder?"

"After thoroughly interrogating the Oracles... I am sorry, the Monitors of both ring worlds, it was enough for everyone who believed in the Great Journey. The Grunts only follow us because that's what they have done for the past 4 ages. And the Hunters, as you call them, just want a reason to fight something."

"How long exactly is four ages?" Colonel Ackerson pressed.

"By Human count, 400 years."

"Very well, let us all discuss this. You are dismissed for now."

The Elites got up. Two of the Spartans went out of the room and waited in front of the hallway. The other two waited at the door to cover the rear. After they parted, the Elites were led back to the detention cells.

* * *

"So what do you think of this alliance's chance, Arbiter?" 'Sotoramee questioned. 

"I think it will hold out for quite awhile. Especially with how many defenses and fleets still exist in the Prophet's control."

"True, but was offering them our technology a wise choice?" 'Komaree wondered aloud.

"If we want this to hold out, we must make sacrifices. First and foremost with our technology. Other things we be revealed to the humans later, but that is not the thing we should talk about."

"Well than what about the High Council? Won't they object to this new alliance?"

"I certainly hope not. But, as a precaution, I've already talked with one of the Council members back on Sangheil. I cut the channel immedietly after I told him, so he would be able to talk it over with the other Councilors. It is a very good thing that Councilor 'Klazumee already approves of it But sadly, most of the other Councilors were executed where the consecration of the index was supposed to begin.."

A few of the Sangheili including 'Klazumee nodded in agreement. The guards that they once called Demons were now leading them out of the cell back towards the conference room. When they got there, one human stepped in front of the rest.

"We have discussed it, and decided, that you are welcome to call us allies." The man said with a trace of happieness in his voice.

"This is the first step to right our wrongs. From here on out, we can fight side by side, brothers in arms, and with monumental pride. We have wronged your race for far too long. Now we can repay our debt to you." The Councilor finished.

"Very well, dismissed."

The Arbiter and the other Sangheili were led out of the room, and towards the docking bay. Once on their Phantom, they rested themselves after what just happened. They had succeded. The alliance would hold out, hopefully. Three trips later, the Arbiter and the other two Sangheili that were already onboard the Cairo when they arrived walked out via the doors on the back of the drop ship. He sent a communique throughout the fleets containing what just happened while they were gone.

* * *

**A/N: The alliance forms up, finnaly. Sorry for the lack of action, but I needed a transition for the start of things to come. Auf Weidersehen then.**


	7. Newfound Strength

**A/N: Well here's my 7th chapter. Please review. Sorry for crappy chapter names, it's a bitch trying to come up with 'em. And I apologize if the chapter seems rushed, more info on the bottom section of the auther's notes.  
**

**Chapter 7: Newfound Strength**

**

* * *

**

Admiral Hood was sitting in his office, reading a data pad containing casualty figures, how many ships and platforms they had left, and which ones needed major repairs. He had Cortana send the specifications and such to the engineers planet side, because Cortana had said it already worked in her tests. The remaining platforms would undergo major refitting for the ability to hold the secondary cannons and also for necessary energy capacity.

Out of 300 defense platforms and each holding a capacity of 300 MAC rounds each, the _Cairo_ had used over half of that amount. A message on the data pad told him he needed to go to the bridge.

* * *

Fleet Admiral Jakob Reiner and his fleet of 145 ships were heading for Earth. They got the distress signal that the Covenant attacked two days ago. In three hours, they would be exiting slipspace near the moon.

After the unbearable wait, his navigations officer alerted him to something strange.

"Sir! I have a Covenant fleet of approximately 340 plus over 70 support frigates! What should we do, sir?" The officer spoke frantically.

"Send shortwave transmissions to the rest of the fleet, tell them to power up all weapons, and arm all Archer pods. And prepare all anti-boarding parties, just in case." The Admiral said. "If we're going down, we sure as hell are taking some of them with us. Are they're any UNSC ships, or even platforms left?"

"I'll check sir. We have... approximately 145 ships, and 260 defense platforms." The officer replied.

"Well, we'll see what's happening there, but i still want all weapons primed and ready. Make sure the Shiva's are ready just in case."

"Yes sir."

* * *

Admiral Hood arrived at the bridge to hear whatever it was that Templar wanted. The AI greeted the Admiral when he entered.

"Hello sir, I have picked up slipspace whispers by the moon's outpost. There is a complete fleet that has been in reserve for the defense of the Inner Colonies, so they have complete power. This fleet, is commanded by Fleet Admiral Jakob Reiner. About 50 of their ships are the Halcyon class cruisers, they have 40 Harvest class missile destroyers, 20 Apoc class frigates, 20 Pennsylvania class battleships, and 10 Trafalgar class super carriers. They also have 5 repair and refit stations with them.

"10 Trafalgar super carriers? I thought the only one made was destroyed?"

"It was, but apparently, this fleet was able to get the necessary supplies to make another 10 more. They must have found another planet with substantial resources."

"Well, at any rate, I'm glad they got here. Templar, when they exit slipspace, I want you to tell them what happened and why there are so many Covenant ships here."

"Yes sir."

* * *

"Arbiter, a Human fleet of 145 vessels strong has just entered the system, they will exit the alternate dimension in 20 minutes" 'Vadumee told him.

"Well, hopefully the Humans will inform their reinforcements of our situation here. When they get here, scan their ships, I want to know what kind they are."

On the scanners of the Covenant fleet, over 100 ships appeared on screen. "Arbiter! The Human ships have entered the system, they have 50 of the Halcyon class cruisers, 40 Harvest class destroyers, 20 Apoc class frigates, 20 battleships of a type we have never encountered, and 10 Trafalgar class super carriers, and 5 repair and refit stations. When we attack the Jiralhanea forces in space, the Human reinforcements will surely be able to put up a fight."

"Well this is certainly good news. We will hold position and wait for further instructions from the Human fleet already here" The Arbiter told his subordinates.

"Yes, Arbiter."

The Arbiter wondered what kind of battleships these Humans brought with them were. _They were never encountered in previous battles. Had they another system, with more resources? With more power than they previously thought? Did they have even more numbers?_ The Arbiter pondered this for awhile before he went to his private quarters to rest. He assumed he would get the details sooner or later.

* * *

"Admiral, we have an incoming transmission on the D- Band. Receiving now."

_"This is the Cairo Station on board AI Templar. Welcome, Admiral, you have a lot to catch up on. For starters, the Elites, Grunts, and Hunters have broken off from the Covenant. They now call themselves The Reclaiming Glory. They have 3 fleets with them, all except one have combat damage." _

_"We have worked out negotiations with them, and have formed a temporary alliance until we finish off the remaining forces that follow the Prophets. Master Chief has killed two of their leadership caste, and the Flood have claimed another. From what the Elites tell us, the Covenant have no leader at the moment, as they are relying on lower status Prophets to guide them._

"AI Templar, I thank you for the information. I will inform my fleet of the current situation. If anyone needs repairs, excluding the Reclaiming Glory forces, my fleet's repair stations should be able to fit your needs."

_"Thank you, Fleet Admiral. We have 57 ships in need of restocking munitions and repairs"_ The AI replied

"Lieutenant Sunders, send the information of the Covenant to all of our ships. Do not attack the Covenant ships here. And have our refit stations prepare for full operational capacity."

"Aye, sir."

* * *

The next day, after restocking damaged ships with ammunition and hull plating, the fleet commanders were all on board the _Cairo_. In the Secondary Conference room, used for planning battle tactics and fleet assembly, were all of the Human Admirals, excluding Fleet Admiral David Harper. The 4 Spartans, Reclaiming Glory Fleet Masters Daso 'Furnumee, Duso 'Furnumee, Baru Sotoramee, the Arbiter, Spec Ops Commander Rtas 'Vadumee, and Councilor Nola 'Klazumee were also there.

Fleet Admiral Reiner started with, "where exactly would be the best place to strike the Covenant? We need to cut the Prophets off from their supply of troops, I understand that. But should we attack the Prophet homeworld, cutting off the rest of their forces from their leadership, or the Brute homeworld, cutting off the leaders from their most valuable source of troops? Arbiter, any thoughts?"

"It is a hard decision. If we destroy the Prophet's homeworld, then the Jiralhanea will be in charge. And they have very poor tactics, as do the Prophets. But if we destroy the Jiralhanea homeworld, the Prophets will be left with only the remaining Jiralhanea they have. I would attack the Jiralhanea homeworld. The leadership will not send ships to a world they think is safe. They have heavy defenses at their own homeworld anyway. So your forces will need many more ships before we can even think about assaulting the Prophets' own planet. The same goes to my fleets."

Then 'Sotoramee interrupted. "We will have to go to our planet in order to coordinate with our council, and to build more ships. It will take only a week to build another 100 or so ships. Our Huragok and Hunagok are very fast workers. And the Sangheili that train in technical duties are able to install hull plating and plasma cannons quickly as well."

"Well, it's no wonder why you have so many ships. It takes us at least a month to build a full 100 ships at operational capacity. But, at any rate, that is no longer possible since the destruction at reach. Now we must rely on the Alpha Centuari system for replacement vessels."

"Now, I know you have given us the ability to produce shields big enough for our ships, and we now know how to make plasma cannons, but we still need slipspace drives that can keep up with yours. A trip that would take you two days journey, would most likely take us 4. Surely you can understand my intentions."

Dosu 'Furnumee then replied to the Admiral. "Yes, i can understand your intentions, but we need the Councils approval. They understand that we need each others help if we are, as a species, to survive, but they are not fool enough to just give away something. Councilor 'Klazumee here has approved giving you the capabilities for ship borne shielding and plasma weaponry, but we need the Councils full approval for the slipspace drives."

"Well, let all of our fleets depart for Sangheil, our home world. We will leave in 3 hours for our system. I will transmit the coordinates before we leave, Admiral. So prepare to mobilize. However, before you enter our system, we will alert the Councilors to your intentions so they do not fire upon you. Although, your forces will have to leave when ours do, so that you will arrive on time. It will be a long journey. However, the Forerunner ship you captured, that only takes half the time ours would, so it will have to jump at least a few days after your forces." 'Sotoramee finished.

"Very good. I shall ready our forces for a slipspace journey. We will await for your transmission, 'Sotoramee" concluded Lord Hood.

And with that, the Elites walked out of the room, bound once again for their commanding ships. The Spartans were told to go to the _Rising Ascension_. Some of the Elites translated the computer screens on the ship so Humans would be able to pilot it.

Afterwards, a fleet of Pelicans, Warthogs, Scorpions, Raptors, Longswords, and finally, Albatross' were loaded onto the ship for ground support. Also, an entire brigade of Marines and a regiment of Hell Jumpers were able to fit onto the ship without causing crew problems. Something that probably couldn't even be done on Covenant ships.

* * *

After all ships, Human and Reclaiming Glory, made their way to Sangheil, the Human and Sangheili commanders had to go to the Council Chambers on the planet. After the meeting between the leaders, it was agreed. An attack on the Jiralhanea homeworld was formulated with the help of Cortana. The RG forces would go in first, disguising themselves by telling the enemy forces that video communications was not possible due to a recent battle. Then, the Human forces would jump to the other side of the planet. The Sangheili ships would then open fire when the Jiralhanea ships went to engage. In order not to attack friendly ships, Cortana installed an FoF ID tag on every allied ship. After the battle, reinforcements would be sent in order to bolster the forces after conflict. With over 400 RG ships, and about 290 Human vessels, the attack would surely be victorious.

* * *

**A/N: Just a snippet of the original chapter. I have to go away from my house for awhile so I won't be able to complete the chapter in at least a week. But still, I would like reviews.**


	8. Light Fuse, Run Away

**A/N: Sorry for the long wait everyone. Instead of finishing the rest of the last chapter by replacing content, I'll just make a new chapter because I like how it ends. And I just hope you enjoy this one. By the way, the name I currently have the Sangheili's (Elite's) planet is temporary, once I think of a good name that I like, it will be replaced. A small factoid for any who care, Jiralhanea is actually the Korean word for monkey.**

**Chapter 8: Light Fuse, Run Away...**

* * *

The Arbiter stood nervously on the command deck of the flagship for the RG forces. Hoping that his communications officer could fool the Jiralhanea defense force into falling for the ploy. The RG forces could still win an outright battle, but the losses that would account for it would not compensate for the victory. The near 300 Human vessels would enter on the side of the planet where the Plasma Batteries were not located, so the Humans do not get decimated in the battle. 

In fact, while the Slipspace journey was being made, the Humans had already strengthened their shields to a higher energy output, making them stronger. The Arbiter was amazed by how well the Humans adapted and improved to anything. And he hoped that now, without the Prophet's grip on their Engineers, they would be able to improve upon their own technology.

After the plan had worked, the Human ships appeared just beyond the sight of the RG ships. An incoming message came from the orbital Plasma Batteries and ships from the Covenant forces.

_"Brothers, the Humans dare enter Holy Covenant space? Let us show them our might! Attack! All forces attack the Human invaders!"_ And the transmission ended.

_This is it, as the Humans say, now or never._ The Arbiter gave the order for all 400+ ships to follow the Covenant fleet, which numbered only 400. He felt the deck rumble as the engines powered up. Once out of range from the Plasma Batteries, the RG ships would unleash a massive salvo of Plasma Torpedoes, Plasma Cannons, and the Plasma Lances equipped on the largest of ships. Out of over 400 ships, the RG forces had only 30 with Plasma Lances on them, but because the Lances could cripple any ship, Human, or Covenant, with only one hit, it did not matter.

"Send a message to all ships in our fleet, tell them to power up all weapons and fire at will. Make sure there are at least a quarter of the enemy force destroyed before the Humans encounter them."

"Yes, Arbiter. Your message will be carried out" Came the reply of the comm officer.

* * *

Fleet Admiral Reiner confident this attack would succeed. Improved shield technology, better than what the RG forces had given them, meaning better than what the entire Covenant armada had, and prototype plasma cannons made from Cortana's design were also on all ships that were larger than the destroyer classification. This attack would not fail, he was sure of it. 

They had just arrived on the other side of the Brute homeworld, _Lobonikos_, the Elites had called it. About the size of Mars, the planet would serve well as a forward attack base and resupply center after they take it from the Covenant.

A look at a monitor told him that the Brute controlled ships were already responding to the threat, as were the RG ships. _Good, if the Arbiter gets off the first shot, it'll confuse the enemy, and let us strike them while they try to figure out what has happened. Hopefully, anyway_ the Admiral thought. He could see the plasma gathering on the lateral lines of the RG vessels first, and soon the Brutes were doing the same. But the RG ships fired away, hitting at least half of the defense fleet, destroying more than 100 instantaneously as multiple shots pierced shields and then the hulls reaching the engine cores.

"Launch all 4 Shivas into the enemy fleet, set maximum burn for 3 minutes. That should get them into the middle of their battle group. And set them for proximity detonation, with a field of 200 yards. And make sure to tell the Arbiter about those nukes. I don't want friendly fire, not here." The Admiral finished.

"Aye, sir. Maximum burn and proximity detonation set. Reclaiming Glory forces notified."

The Admiral decided to now sit down and enjoy the show from one of the multiple cameras pointed towards battle.

* * *

"Arbiter!" Yelled the communications officer. "The Humans have launched three Shiva class nuclear missiles into the enemy fleet, and they have sent word that we should get out of the blast radius." 

"Very well. Tell the fleet to get out of the blast radius. The nuclear missiles have done much damage to our fleets in the past."

"Incoming transmission from Fleet Master 'Sotoramee, Arbiter."

"Put it on the main screen."

_"Arbiter, This is Fleet Master 'Sotoramee. Won't the EMP in those devices knock out our shields?"_

"Only if you stay inside the blast radius. They have approximately 2 minutes left until detonation, so I trust you can get your fleet out of it."

_"Yes, Arbiter. I will do as I must."_

The Arbiter watched as the other three Fleet Masters got their ships out of the blast radius. Because of close proximity to enemy ships, they could listen in on their communications.

_"Are the Traitors and the Humans retreating? They all seem to be moving away from us."_

_"Nonsense, Sangheili have never retreated before. So why should they now? I think they are planning something."_

_"Perhaps, but even the Humans have stopped firing at us. Do they wish to achieve some sort of agreement? If so, they are sorely mistaken. We shall not follow the footsteps of the traitorous Sangheili. We shall protect our homeworld, even to our dieing breath!"_

_"Thou in faith, will keep us safe. Whilst we find the path"_ one of them quoted.

Just after the Jiralhanea quoted the Covenant Writ of Union, all three Shiva's blew up. Out of the remaining 300 or so ships, about 50 more were instantly vaporized in the explosion. Numerous ships listed into others that were still intact. Only the Jiralhanea ships on the very outside of the explosion took minor damage. But, because of the EMP, none of their equipment was in working order, making them prime targets.

"Tell all of our fleets to fire at once, before their equipment gets back online!" The Arbiter practically yelled at his comm officer.

_Hopefully, the Humans are doing the same for their fleet. Then we can capture the Jiralhanea homeworld, and make repairs. But,_ the Arbiter thought, _we will need to send in ground forces if we wish to fortify it._ The arbiter felt a thump as the Plasma Cannons fired from the turrets. With the adjustments from the Human AI, the Plasma was shaped into a beam instead of a ball of energy. As seen from just before the battle started, one could control where the plasma could go. Because of this, most of the Jiralhanea vessels were neatly sliced in two instead of having melted hulls.

From a view screen, he saw the Humans fire their own MAC cannons and their own Plasma Cannons. Out of an original defense fleet of 400, the Jiralhanea ships numbered closer to 100.

_"What just happened!"_

_"I don't know! After the first enemy barrage, 50 more friendly ships just vanished from radar! Now we have lost another 200! How many enemy ships are there!"_

_"An estimate counts over... 700 enemy ships! My brothers... Our planet is lost... Warn the ground forces of imminent invasion. Perhaps we can hold them off from there."_

_"Yes, let the Forerunners watch over their souls. Forgive us."_

* * *

Jabrolon watched as his brothers in the other ships were destroyed. He knew that he would soon be obliterated by the might of the Human's and the Traitors' weapons. _May the Forerunners protect my soul in the Great Journey._

Jabrolon waited for death to overtake him_. I welcome death as my savior from this horrid place._ As his last thought took place an MAC shell struck his ship. After a few more shots from the Allied forces, one went through the Bridge, killing all who were in it, and making the ship another dead hulk in the field of space.

* * *

After the Allied forces mopped up the rest of the Brute fleet, they counted their own losses. The Human ships had lost only 7 ships out of about 300, and the RG vessels lost around 15. 

Fleet Admiral Reiner had to reorganize his fleets as well as the Arbiter. Reiner opened a channel with the Arbiter.

"Arbiter, we should send in ground forces now. After that, we should attack the Plasma Batteries on the other side of the planet."

_"I agree. However, we should capture the capital of the planet first. It is on the dark side of the planet, so we must use special forces. I suggest you land all of the Spartans on the planet, as your ODST's and Marines will not be enough, even with vehicle support. We will land 6 teams of Mirratord strike teams on various locations near the city."_

"Yes, I suppose that would work. However, after we take the capital, about 30 of our ships will be leaving for reinforcements and for troops."

_"OK, but be on your guard, do not go into the range of the Plasma Batteries until we can occupy the generators on the ground. I want to have a defensible position with more than just ships. After we take hold of the generators, we can launch boarding parties into the platforms to capture them. A note of coincidence, our Plasma Batteries are exactly like your super MAC cannons that were guarding Reach, and the ones that still guard your planet."_

"Alright, thanks for the tip. We'll be on our way with the boarding parties. Make sure to send out yours after our Pelican takes off."

_"It will be done."_

The comm channel ended, and Reiner called for Master Chief to come up to the bridge.

* * *

**A/N: I apologize if the chapter seems rushed. I have to start school in less than a few days, so I can't have much time for writing anymore. A bit shorter than normal because it was part of chapter 7, so I just hope that you still enjoyed it as much as I did writing it. Auf Weidersehen.**


	9. Grau Falk

**A/N: Finally! I know I haven't updated in awhile, but I have school now, remember? Anyway, a few of the characters will be speaking in German, and the dictionary I use is a pain-in-the-ass. On a side note, EliasDaemonwing, you'll get your answer in the next few chapters. Well, enjoy. I'll include the translations right under the actualy part. Although it's almost unnecessary (the German parts), if you wan to know what it's saying go ahead and read it. Also, for fluent German speakers, tell me if I need to rewrite the sentences, because I'm only starting German class this year. Also, if It doesn't come out right (which is most likely), please tell me how it should be written (only in HochDuetsch! No variants or dialects. No offense.)  
**

**Chapter 9: Grau Falk**

* * *

The Spec Ops team Grau Falk was in their ready room. One of the members was having his friend time him to see how fast he could disasemble and reassemble the relatively new MA8B. 

"Alle zusamen!" Hoffmann had just finished. He was waiting for his friend's response while he got up to stretch.

"Nein." Adoest, his Captain said. "Du bist an abgeheigt. Los, wir wollen gehen an die Kommandobrücke."

"Aber was denn! Nehmen wir einmal an das Ich kann doch das abermals." He walked back up to his friend, hoping for a second chance.

"Nein." He simply replied. "Lassen Sie sich nicht täuschen. Du. Kann. Nicht. Du nötig mehr praxis. Du nötig sich ranhalten, oder wir wollen spät kommen." Adoest got up to get the other members of the team ready.

"Edel..." Hoffmann gave up. He was trying to beat a record for the fastest maintenance on the rifle. So far the record was just over a minute, and he kept getting 1:30. He was frustrated, but after all, records are made to be broken.

* * *

**The Spec Ops team Grau Falk was in their ready room. One of the members was having his friend time him to see how fast he could disasemble and reassemble the relatively new MA8B.**

**"All together!" Hoffmann had just finished. He was waiting for his friend's response while he got up to stretch.**

**"No." Adoest, his Captain said. "You are to slow. Come on, let's go to the command deck."**

**"Come on now! Let us assume that I can do this again." He walked back up to his friend, hoping for a second chance.**

**"No." He simply replied. "Don't let yourself be fooled. You. Can. Not. You need more practice. You need to hurry up, or we will be late." Adoest got up to get the other members of the team ready.**

**"Fine..." Hoffmann gave up. He was trying to beat a record for the fastest maintenance on the rifle. So far the record was just over a minute, and he kept getting 1:30. He was frustrated, but after all, records are made to be broken.**

* * *

Fleet Admiral Reiner was waiting for team Grau Falk to report to the bridge. He had just briefed Master Chief and his fellow Spartans about Grau Falk's support. They were getting ready in the armory. Just then, he spotted Captain Adoest walk on to the bridge. 

"Hallo, Oberhaupt. Ich zuversicht du gehabt auf ruhig takt?" He greeted them with a smile.

"Ja, Flottenadmiral. Wir sind greifbar für kämpfen. Wir nötig das Gerät und die Waffen." He replied with an elated tone. He was finnaly going to fight with a Spartan.

"Gehe auf an Waffen Versteck sieben. Sie sind aus hier."

"Dankeschön, Flottenadmiral. Wir werde stück unser urlaub soeben." Adoest saluted the Fleet Admiral, and lead his team towards Armory 7.

* * *

**Fleet Admiral Reiner was waiting for team Grau Falk to report to the bridge. He had just briefed Master Chief and his fellow Spartans about Grau Falk's support. They were getting ready in the armory. Just then, he spotted Captain Adoest walk on to the bridge.**

**"Hello, Captain. I trust you had a peaceful time?" He greeted them with a smile.**

**"Yes, Fleet Admiral. We are ready for combat. We need equipment and weapons." He replied with an elated tone. He was finnaly going to fight with a Spartan.**

**"Gehe to Weapons Cache seven. They are over there."**

**"Thank you, Fleet Admiral. We will take our leave now." Adoest saluted the Fleet Admiral, and lead his team towards Armory 7.**

* * *

John was busy with his team, getting ready for the upcoming mission. John was always one to take the initiative, but he also stayed with things that were proven. So he took both versions of assault rifles for the mission, 6 frags, an M6D, and 12 clips for each gun. 

Linda took an SRS34 Sniper's Rifle, 2 frags, and an MA8D, which is a stripped down version of the rifle, much like the MA2B. She outfitted her rifle with a flash suppression mount, a new scope that allowed up to 15x magnification, and switched the grip to a pistol grip.

Fred was outfitting himself with an MA8B, 6 frags and for close quarters he had an M90 shotgun strapped to his back.

Meanwhile Will had equipped himself with a trusty MA5B and a Jackhammer for armored and aeriel targets. He also took an entire satchel's worth of ammo with, for reloads for their entire team.

After John had himself situated, the doors opened with a hissing sound and in walked team Grau Falk. He decided to walk over and greet them.

"Hello, Team Grau Falk. I look forward to working with you."

Erik could hardly believe his eyes. Looking at the seven foot tall behemoth in front of him, he thought it would be impossible for one of them to die. "Yes, hello Master Chief" He had a thick German accent to his speech. "As do I. You shall find that me and my team have an excellent operational status, so we could help you in many ways."

"Yes, I have looked it over. Only 2 missions failed, but only because they were scrubbed. Out of over 40 missions against the Covenant, only minor injuries were sustained. You'll be Bravo team, and we'll be Alpha team. Got that?"

"Ja, very much so, Chief."

"Good, should my team or yours need support, the other team shall lend a hand as quickly as possible. Now there are also Elite strike teams helping us out as well, I trust you won't open fire on them? Especially since they are like us Spartans, except many more."

"Of course, Master Chief. We will not open fire on them, but we will not, however, provide support unless a squad is almost wiped out."

"Well, it's a start at least. Go, get your gear and go to the other Pelican."

"Jawol, we shall be ready in less than 5 minutes."

John looked at the shock troopers with mild interest. Their combat record was exceptional, even compared to his own. Although they didn't yet have shields, they must have some type of method to slip away from the enemy. He decided that it would be in his best interest to try and get the Captain's team into helping, if not liking the Elites.

* * *

With six Sangheili in each Mirratord team, and five team, plus the Spartans and whatever else the Human Fleet Master had sent with them would be good enough to capture the capital. He gave the order to four other ships to prep the strike teams, because launch was in a unit. 

By 'Vadumee's request, he was allowed to participate in the assault. If the Arbiter knew his close friend, he would certainly cause massive chaos among the Jiralhanea ranks.

* * *

As the Jiralhanea walked up to his master, The Prophet of Truth, he was hoping that we would not be punished for the news he was about to bring. 

He gave the traditional sign of respect until Truth let him speak. "Noble Prophet of Truth, I have grave news from _Lobonikos_."

"Yes? What is it?" Truth was worried now. Bad news for the Covenant was worse than it sounds.

"I have word from ground forces that the defense fleet has been wiped out, and that the traitorous Sangheili have sided themselves with the Humans. It also appears the Humans and the vermin have landed ground forces near the capital. Reconnaissance has revealed that they intend to take the planet as a base of operations and a supply center." The informant was really worried now. Not only for his own sake, but for his mate, and all his brethren trying to keep the filth away.

"What? Send the Fleet of Zealous Strength to destroy them! I want to know what they are planning to do when they capture the planet. Send me a report every 150 units on the progress of the fleet and the progress of the traitors and Humans."

"Yes, Noble Truth. Your Will be done." With that, the Jiralhanea left to contemplate his fate, and for Truth, to make sense of this recent turn of events.

* * *

On board the _UNSC Higheron_, three figures were walking through the abandoned wreck. From comm. terminals, they were able to find out recent events, and all were equally surprised. 

"So what do you suppose this means, Alexandra?" One of them said.

The one called Alexandra spoke, "I suppose, that this will mean that we have to work with Elites, Grunts, and Hunters for now. Provided we can find a transport out of here. Although I wish I could still give one of those split-lipped bastards what's comin', that would probably cause this alliance to fail. Not only that, but we need the sons-of-bitches to survive, because the Covenant have already attacked Earth once."

"True, but I still don't like it." Carl replied. "Hey, Drake, what'd ya think?"

Drake turned his head towards his compatriot and said, "As long as I can still kill something, I don't give a damn."

The other two nodded and continued looking for the spare parts to fix the Shaw-Fujikawa Faster Than Light Drive so they could get out of the Jericho System.

* * *

After the two Stealth Pelicans loaded up, they were given the proper clearance to lift off. The RG Mirratord Strike Teams already launched from drop pods to create a distraction for the Spartans so they could sneak in. Although the special dropships they were using had engine masks, noise reducers, and special painting, they still created quite a scene. 

As they descended through the atmosphere, they encountered no anti-aircraft fire. But from viewports on the sides of the drops they could see the blue explosions from Covenant equipment as the RG strike teams did their jobs.

As the dropship slowed to a stop, Linda and the team jumped out onto the rooftop. As team Grau Falk's dropships went to the other point of insertion, their team dropped on the rooftop as well. While Anne Durnst set up her sniper's rifles, the other four opened the door and started to clear the building. With Erik on point, he downed two Brutes after they opened the first door they encountered.

As they surveyed the room, they found that, as luck would have it, they landed right on the enemy's command post. Because the top level was an armory, they decided to make that their base of operations. With weapons containers, small barricades, and even a few Shade turrets, they could definitely hold themselves up if they ran out of ammunition.

* * *

After Linda set herself up, the three other Spartans cleared the building, which was just security checkpoint. Soon they started to hear the repeated cracks of a rifle as Linda began her work. Master Chief gave a series of hand signals to direct his Spartans to clear each surrounding building. Will was assigned the building on their west side, Fred got the East one, and John chose the northern building himself. 

After half an hour, they all checked back in at the rooftop, where Linda was still firing away. Will searched through his satchel and gave Linda another ten clips of ammunition, because no one was even sure of how much she brought.

"_Alpha Team, this is Bravo Team, do you copy?" _Master Chief heard this on his radio and responded.

_"This is Alpha Team, we copy. What is your status, Bravo?"_

_"We are pinned down, and need support fire. We are approximately half a klick away from your position. The bastards have got two ghosts, a shade, and 20 infantry plus change assaulting us. You guys got the Jackhammer, so hurry."_

_"Yes, sir. We should be there in about 1 minute."_

_"Roger that, over and out."_

As Linda unlimbered her sniper's rifle and took out her compact AR. She cocked the bolt and let the receiver slide into place. "Let's go."

The others nodded and went downstairs. When they were on the ground, they ran towards Bravo Team's location. Hopefully it won't be Grau Falk's last mission.

* * *

**A/N: Well that was fun to write. Anyway, care to guess who Alexandra, Carl, and Drake are? Well, I could tell you, but that would ruin the surprise for you. Like I said before, when Team Grau Falk is in their ready room and when the Captain is talking to Reiner, it has no actual meaning to the story. Unless you like to have introductions. Being that I have just started German 1 this year, and my translator only works for one or two words at a time, and, as I have found out, it may not always be right. And it probably doesn't make sense, but if you count it as a literal translation, it might. Well, I hope you enjoyed this one, I certainly did writing it. Auf wiedersehen.**


	10. Tactical Precision

**A/N: Well, this was a fast update, compared to my others, anyway. Feel safe, for there is no German in this chapter, unless it is a simple response, goodbye, or hello. Well let's get on with it, shall we? Oh, and before I forget, slayer123bio, I have not completely disregarded your ideas in that review, but after all, I can't give the invasion force something if it's at Earth, now can I? Although I have an idea on how I could get them there. Have you remembered my three little characters I added in the Jericho system? I hope so, they add to the plot. Unfortunately, I can't add their bios or the ship's until I reveal who they are.**

**Chapter 10: Tactical Precision**

* * *

After Adoest made a distress call to Alpha team, he returned to firing away at the approaching Covenant forces. He watched in horror as a Wraith tank made its way around a corner and prayed that its driver was a bad shot. The tank lobbed a mortar towards their position. As the ball of plasma reached its point of apogee, it gracefully slammed into the building behind them. 

"Fuck! I hope those Spartans get here fast!" He yelled as he threw a captured plasma grenade at a jackal. When the grenade stuck to its face, the creature ran towards the Brutes, screaming, then shortly exploded, taking two of the monsters down. "Ha! Take that, you son of a bitch!"

By now, the Wraith had adjusted its aim, and fired again. Instead of going over their heads like last time, however, the blast slammed into the front of the building, shaking it, and disintegrating its entrance.

* * *

Rtas 'Vadumee led his fellow Spec Ops warriors through the streets with their active camo on. He was in the northern side of the city. In the distance he heard the steady _clack clack clack _of the Humans' ballistic weapons and the whine of the Brute Plasma rifles. When he looked into the sky he saw a few Wraith mortar blasts sieging one building. 

In his native tongue, he told his fellow warriors where they were heading. They silently crept through the alleyways and encountered about 10 Jiralhanea milling around the middle of the street. He nodded to his Sangheili and pulled out their version of the Humans' garrote wire. They too pulled out theirs, and activated them. They silently crept up to the stinking beasts and choked four of them before the others were alerted to the Mirratord's presence.

One yelled in a series of unintelligible grunts and fired his rifle in every direction. When the Sangheili pulled out their energy swords, however, the Jiralhanea knew where they were, although it didn't matter as they were cut down violently. They deactivated their weapons and continued on course.

* * *

When the four Spartans reached their destination, Linda pulled out her personalized rifle and found a place of cover. Although they had to battle through an entire company's worth of Brutes, Jackals, and Drones, they were able to get to Bravos' position within a few minutes. 

Master Chief told Will to get ready and fire at the tank first. He complied, and in a few seconds, the tank exploded in flames and belched out smoke. Shrapnel from the blast killed three Jackals and one Brute. Will took aim once more, and fired at the closest Ghost. It too exploded and soon did they second one.

Master Chief and Fred charged into the mess after the tank was destroyed and started slaughtering every Covenant soldier in sight.

John reloaded his MA5B and continued firing. Two clips later he switched to his other rifle after the barrel was slagged from a stray plasma blast. Then he continued firing his rifle at the soldier that ruined his favorite gun.

At the same time, Will had strapped his MA8B to the magnetic clamps on his back and drew out his shotgun. He fired the weapon at a Jackal that was to close for its own good, and pulled out, then primed a frag grenade. Watching the grenade fly forward, it exploded and took out a file of five Jackals who couldn't bring their shield behind themselves fast enough. Sensing something behind him, he took his shotgun in one hand, and fired.

It turns out that he filled a Brutes' face full of lead, and it fell backwards, twitched once, and finally died.

After the last enemy was killed, John yelled, "Clear down!"

* * *

The entire Grau Falk team stared in astonishment. As they watched the Spartans mutilate the enemy forces in every way possible, Adoest hadn't even heard the Spartan yell something. 

"Clear down!" the Spartan yelled again. As the Captain shook himself, he returned to reality and yelled back, "clear up!" He looked over the lead Spartan and saw that he was completely covered in dark blue and black blood, save for his helmet. It was truly an awe-inspiring site to see.

"Thank you, we didn't think that we'd survive when that Wraith showed up." The Master Chief responded, "no problem, all in a days' work. Hey, 058 reports that one of the Elite Spec Ops teams is almost here. We better greet them."

The Captain nodded and followed the Chief after he and his team headed towards ground level.

* * *

As 'Vadumee and his team of Mirratord were getting closer, they weren't hearing anymore explosions or weapons fire. _That either meant that their team had failed to reach the Humans in time, or that the Humans were triumphant_. He certainly hoped for the second one, and led his team through the last alleyway. What met his eyes though, was certainly not what he expected.

What he saw were two of the Spartans covered in Jackal and Jiralhanea blood, the wreckage of a few vehicles, including a Wraith, and two more Spartans. One with a rocket launcher, and the other with a sniper rifle.

"Well, Master Chief, it appears that you have been very busy" 'Vadumee said in a half-joking manner.

The Demon replied with a curt nod and sat down on a nearby gravity bench on the sidewalk.

The Mirratord team walked into full view and also saw Team Grau Falk. They looked with a strong demeanor and talked to themselves. Rtas decided that he would talk to the Master Chief.

"Master Chief, I must let you know, that from my previous visit to this city before the Separation occurred, this is the center of the city. The other teams should be making their way hear soon. from recent radio chatter that I heard, the Jiralhanea are losing numbers from regular troops that your forces and ours have sent down to reinforce this area."

The Demon looked at him, with a renewed interest as 'Vadumee went on.

"However, we, as in, us, will have to stay down here to maintain a grip on the city, until the Jiralhanea, Kig Yar, and Yanme'e have been eliminated from the surrounding cities."

"Well, I suppose that we'll need to create a perimeter defense. From Grau Falk's comments, they captured an armory that the Brutes set up. From what I heard, there is a few Shades, two shielded plasma cannons, and 4 regular plasma cannons." The Spartan paused and took a breath. "Also, from communications from our fleet's flagship, I requested 4 gauss turrets and 4 GP turrets. They should be here in 5 minutes. They're also sending us a platoon of Marines to provide man the positions and help out."

Rtas nodded his head and went with his team to search the armory they found.

When he walked in, he saw over 20 energy shields lined up together, there were, in fact, four Shades, and the other turrets that the Chief mentioned. With weapons racks containing things from plasma pistols to beam rifles, and comm uplink crates strewn about.

Rtas and his Mirratord team started to get the equipment out of the room and got them into position across each end of the street. With 12 energy shields set up in a defensive position on each side, 2 Shades on each side, and all of the emplacements divided up equally. The weapons crates were lined up against the outside walls of the buildings for easy access.

Piles of rubble were stacked up inside the alleyways so there would be no surprises. During this, they could all hear the roar of the 4 Pelican dropships coming through the atmosphere. As they unloaded their complement of Marines along with the turrets, they walked down from the rooftops and set up the turrets with care so as not to break the weapons.

The Marines eyed the Mirratord with suspicion, and walked a bit faster when they passed them. Finally, the defense was set up, just in time too, as a horde of Jiralhanea, Kig Yar, Ghosts, and even a few Wraiths came hurdling down the street.

* * *

PFC Dan Thomas looked up with grim determination as he saw the Covenant troops approach en masse. With lines of Jackals walking with their shields in front, for typical behavior, and dozens of Brutes behind, waiting to engage the enemy. Behind them, there were about 20 Ghosts, which was stupid, because the streets weren't exactly wide, and 4 Wraiths following suit. 

The only good thing about the Wraiths was, they weren't able to fire their mortar cannons because they would risk dropping them on their own troops or themselves.

Another good thing was, the Gauss turrets and GP turrets were able to fire and knock Jackal after Jackal to the ground, and break their ranks. Also, the Company's mortar crew had three 81mm mortars, which opened up on the ever approaching Covenant.

As the shells hit the middle of the attack, the Brutes and the Ghosts were getting hit. After the first three volleys, half of the Brutes were incinerated, 5 Ghosts were complete wrecks, and even a Wraith was belching smoke and sitting on the ground. But after that, they were to close to hit with the mortars. But fortunately for the frontline, all of the Jackals were laying dead on the ground or dieing, bleeding profusely.

When they got close enough, they Plasma Cannons were able to start firing. As streams of plasma, bullets, and shells from two Gauss cannons, the rest of the Brutes and Ghosts were destroyed. By now, the Wraiths started to turn around and tried to boost their way out of the chaotic situation, two more were hit by shells going at subsonic speeds. But the last was able to limp away, only to be destroyed less than 20 minutes later by a Mirratord team making their way towards their temporary HQ.

* * *

Rtas could see that the Humans were very well trained in combat. They had dispatched of the Covenant faster than any Sangheili defense could. But aside from that, had _he _led the attack, he would have used the mortar tanks first, to soften up the defense. Then, send in a few Ghosts, and another wave of them. After that, he would have sent the infantry to mop up whatever would remain of the defense force. 

At any rate, the Humans did an outstanding job. He was impressed, and even went to congratulate a few of the Marines.

Although, because the fleet was such a surprise attack, the ground forces were able to take over the capital in less then a few hours. Because Rtas could hear more of the Humans' automatic rifle fire. And could see blue and red explosions nearer than before.

While in thought, the other five Mirratord teams made their way through the wreckage of the battlefield and greeted him. 'Vadumee replied in kind and debriefed them on the current situation. After they had learned of the situation, they started to clear all of the debris left by the Marines' firepower.

* * *

Meanwhile, in space, Captain Tom Lind was traveling through the blank void of slipspace, where his destination was an inner colony that the Covenant had never found. The planet, _Aradania, _was vastly populated. Because they had lost contact with Earth, they had an extreme amount of ships that were built. They even had a proper amount of trained Naval crew, with Marine contingents aboard each ships. Ranging from Pennsylvania class battleships to Apoc class frigates, and full armaments besides the new MAPCs and shields, they would be a vast help. 

From an AI count, there were about 70 battleships, 10 carriers, and 150 missile destroyers, complemented by 100 frigates, they would be a huge addition to the fleets current status.

He contacted one of the carriers. "This is the _UNSC Rwanda_. All of the ships here are being assimilated into the Fleet of Immense Strength. Please comply."

He got a response, _"This is the Captain of the UNSC Petrolyph. We shall comply. Although our Admiral here would like to know what's up."_ Then, on the screen in the _Rwanda_, Admiral Nimitz, a relative of the famous Nimitz in WWII, appeared.

_"Captain, why are you taking this fleet? I would like to know your intentions."_

"Very well, Admiral, I'll send you a report of the situation at hand. Transmitting." The Admiral looked it over, and nodded his head.

_"Alright, everything seems to be in order, although extremely surprising, we'll follow. Oh yes, and send me the information of the UNSC comm channels, the folks planetside lost them because of some dumb technical officer."_

"Yes, sir. Here you go."

_"Thank you, the citizens will be pleased to have outside contact with whatever remains of our colonies."_

"Your welcome, here are the coordinates, we will see you there."

And with that, a hole appeared in space, and the 30 ships that entered the system, left. Soon after, the Admirals group of ships did the same, leaving Aradania behind.

* * *

**A/N: Well, I certainly hope you enjoyed this. As always, I enjoyed writing it. Even though it was a fast update for me, I am fairly certain that I did a good job on it. Oh, and please, please read my profile. It contains a lot of information of the things in my fic. And BTW, slayer123bio, no I haven't forgotten yet, so don't get mad. And yes, there is a reason why I haven't included the three mysterious people onboard the UNSC Higheron. Although you can't find out about it, _ever._**


	11. Fortification

**A/N: Well, here's the 11th chapter! Hard to believe I made it so far, huh? Anyway, to answer Slayer's yet again lengthy review, the three secret characters aboard the UNSC Higheron, will help Humanity more than anyone else that's an OC, but just wait and find out! My first ever flashback is going to be in this chapter, so watch out when you find it. Here we go now.**

**Chapter 11: Fortification**

* * *

Alexandra sighed. From a map of the ship, they were directly above the room with the repair parts. She had taken the elevator all the way down here, just to push the wrong button. 

"Come on guys, wrong floor. It's right below us so we just need to use the elevator once more" she told them.

"Figures, we always were the ones who slipped up on our ops." Carl said with a hint of annoyance.

Drake spoke up then, "Carl, don't say that. All you did was blow a hole in the floor of what we thought was an unoccupied building, and get us surrounded by an entire platoon's worth of Covenant" he laughed.

"Man, how was _I_ supposed to know that the building contained a Forerunner Artifact?"

"Well, ONI _did_ tell us that during the briefing, unless you were sleeping inside your helmet again" he snickered once more.

"Oh shut up, your not helping my attitude here."

"OK, children, settle down. Now, on to business. We are now at the elevator shaft. Does anyone want to tell me what we do now?"

Carl raised his hand in a sarcastic way and said, "ooh, ooh, do we get to go down there and get the parts?"

"Yes, now come on. We don't have all day" Alexandria laughed.

* * *

Master Chief and his fellow Spartans were riding an airlift Pelican towards the UNSC's flagship, the Resounding Hammer. Another Pelican was also taking team Grau Falk. Linda and John were cleaning their weapons and Will and Fred were resting with their heads on the bulkheads. 

After a day's worth of heavy fighting, they had taken the generators that powered up the orbital batteries guarding the planet. All they had to do now was capture them and bring in some of their own to fortify the planet.

After they docked with the Resounding Hammer, the Spartans went to their ready room and had some well deserved rest. Team Grau Falk, however, had slept during slept during the three hours before the Pelicans first arrived.

* * *

Captain Tom Lind was nearing the slipspace exit. Ten minutes after his battlegroup had left the alternate dimension, Admiral Nimitz' fleet had entered real space too, and were transfered to the Fleet of Immense Power under command of Fleet Admiral Jakob Reiner. 

The 330 newly arrived ships added to the already impressive number of ships of 283. The Captain opened a comm channel to Reiner.

"Admiral, the mission was a success. We have gathered an additional 330 ships, and found a planet we thought was lost to the Covenant. We have reestablished connection for them, and the Admiral of the fleet has said he would transfer his ships into your fleet."

"Very good, Captain. However, an enemy fleet is approaching from slipspace scanning. I advise you and our guests to prepare for ship to ship combat, and ready anti boarding parties."

"Yes sir, we will prepare for combat. Over and out."

* * *

The Prophet of Truth sighed, today was not going very well. From recent reports, the Traitors and the Human scum have captured _Lobonikos_ and wiped out all Jiralhanea on the planet. Not only that, but the orbital batteries that did not make it to Lobonikos in time were destroyed by the Sangheili at a refueling station. It looks like he would have to garrison _Denlida_ more than he thought. 

_Not only that, but the Traitors had given the Humans ship-borne shields, their FTL engines, and even how to build the weapons that the Forerunners had bestowed upon them as gifts! What more could go wrong_, he wondered? The fleet he sent towards the planet were going to exit the alternate dimension in just another unit. He hoped they would be able to accomplish what the others had not.

* * *

Captain Lind was busy getting his MACs and his MAPC powered up for the nearing Covenant Fleet. All ships, including the RG forces, were anticipating the counter-attack. 

A nuclear minefield was set up in the expected slipspace exit point of the attack. Although the mines did not have an EMP charge attached to their warheads, they still packed a punch to anything caught in it's blast. The Captain heard a warning beep and knew it was about to begin. The navigations officer told him the point of exit.

_Damn. We set the field in the wrong area completely. Those mines aren't going to help in this battle, unless we lure them into it. But, that would be pointless, as we would lose some of our own ships in the resulting explosion. Well, at least we can win anyways._

* * *

As the Covenant armada exited slipspace, everything was quiet. Unless you count the fact that over 800 warships unleashed their fury on the enemy, which was trying to get their systems back online after the jump. Many MAC shells missed their mark and flew through space, and even a few plasma beams missed. 

By now though, the Covenant counter-attacked. They launched three waves of plasma before the Allies were able to fire again. The balls of plasma slowly made their way across the battlefield, in a graceful manner, and washed into the shields of RG and Human vessels. 57 Allied ships became slagged wrecks as the plasma burned through their shields and into their hulls. A number of other ships listed to port or starboard, depending on where they were hit.

However, despite the brief victory for the Covenant aggressors, newly created MAC shells, balls of plasma, MAPC rounds, and plasma lances struck into their ships, creating a firestorm of destruction. With over 3 quarters of their fleet gone, the Brute controlled ships started to break away from each other, trying to avoid losing their lives. It didn't work.

A last salvo of Allied might pummeled the remaining ships, but from the last enemy vessels still alive, they were able to release their last batch of plasma before becoming distant memories. Finally, the UNSC was able to gain ground during the 30 year war.

* * *

Having just received word of the second fleets' destruction, Truth was furious. They had lost complete contact with Lobonikos, and was presumed to be in enemy hands. And with the Sangheili allied with the Humans, there was limited territory Truth was able to lead his fleets into, as the Sangheili were guarding them. 

Then Truth looked at the cowering Unggoy informant, and told him, "ready all of our fleets, we are going to _Denlida_."

The Unggoy almost collapsed in fear, "y-y-yes Most Noble Prophet of Truth. Your will be done." With that, the little creature scurried away in fear. But the message would be sent, at any rate.

The Unggoy that stood with Truth and decided to not ally themselves with the Humans were still pathetic, although they had shown more courage than the ones that sided with the Traitors and the Humans. Within 600 Units, the 7 fleets guarding Truth's flagships would arrive at the heart of all protection, _Denlida_, their home planet.

* * *

Fleet Admiral David Harper was getting ready to send 30 newly built Orbital Defense Platforms equipped with both types of guns; the SMAC and the SMAPC. The generators required to power them were already on their way through slipspace to the Elite's homeworld, _Retenkos_. When everyone in his fleet was fueled up, they set sail through space, and tore a hole in it. In went the guns and the escorting ships. 

After the SMACs and SMAPCs made it to _Retenkos_, the Admiral would have his fleet return to Earth in another jump. The space between _Earth _and _Retenkos _was uncontested, so they needed an escort, however, the route from _Retenkos_ to _Lobonikos_ was held by the Elites.

After an relatively uneventful trip through slipspace, they checked in with the nearest outpost, and cleared themselves to get fuel and rest. The prototype slipspace drives installed on the Admiral's fleet also needed maintenance, and minor repairs. One of his destroyers was crushed because the engine failed mid-journey, and was caught in-between real space and slipspace at the same time, so he didn't want to take any chances.

After repairs were completed, they headed back to Earth, with the OD Platforms going towards _Lobonikos_. Although the Admiral didn't like the thought of the Grunts and Elites aboard his ship, he allowed them to, though they got looks of disgust and partial fear from the Navy personell and Marines onboard.

* * *

The Sangheili Officer and his squad mates obviously didn't like being in the cramped compartments of the Human ships either, but the Unggoy with them were just scared out of their minds. To see so many Humans up close,_ armed humans_, not to mention. One of the little creatures even soiled himself, much to the disgrace of his brethren and Sangheili, and to the laughter of the Human crew. 

_We are here to service and repair the Human FTL drives, and that is it_, the squad leader thought. He looked at the cowering creature. _The Humans were able to fend off the Covenant for longer than any other opponent the Covenant had ever faced, and with _inferior_ technology, yet the Unggoy had the same technology as they did while in the Covenant when the Unggoy Rebellion began, and still their forces only lasted 2 cycles. Clearly they are not aggressive beings, but their only usefulness was to wear the enemies out, and then the Sangheili would charge in, and wipe out remaining forces._

Then, he realized, _the Sangheili have no actual honor. We use other species as a way to wear an enemy down, and then mop up the rest and take all the glory. Not only this, but we have been serving false Gods and we have been wiping out a species which has caused us no harm to begin with. They have fought honorably, and for a just cause, whilst we have been fighting for, what was it? Glory? Respect? Haven to a realm which does not exist? I do not know. But I do know this, I will do whatever it takes to restore honor to my lineage, and I will willingly aid the Humans in their campaign to rid the universe of the self-proclaimed 'Prophets'._

He remembered his first combat mission against the Humans while walking towards the engine compartments.

* * *

Cesa 'Fortumee was riding the new dropship the Huragok have just come up with. The Phantom class dropship looked like a beetle. It had 3 shade turrets mounted in a triangular formation on the underside of the ship. Dark purple, it had a miniature grav lift in the middle of it, and also had docking ports on its rear in case the lift was obstructed in some way. 

He and his squad. consisting of three other Sangheili, 10 Unggoy, and 4 Kig-Yar, were waiting almost with an air of impatience as the dropship sped towards their location. A place called New Mombasa, it was surrounded by the desert, except on the one side of the megalopolis that was the port.

When his squad landed, they met only light resistance. A squad of Humans had taken shelter behind a makeshift barricade. While four Unggoy went down, another lost it's arm, and a sixth was blown to buts by a poorly thrown grenade. The Kig-Yar had formed the usual defensive shield by overlapping their energy shields. Two of them went down from stray fire, and the survivors had ran to take shelter in a nearby alleyway.

The four Sangheili, however, stood their ground. Cesa primed and threw a plasma grenade, notable for their curious tendency to stick to organic targets. The grenade flew through the air, and melded onto one of the Humans' helmets. The Human took of the helmet and rapidly threw it back at them, with the helmet landing in the middle of the cowering Unggoy. The helmet blew up, and incinerated three of the Unggoy, while badly burning the last one to the point where it could no longer fight.

This was not going good, Cesa thought. So he took out and primed a second plasma grenade from his utility clip, and this time, it stuck to one of the Humans' faces. It ran around screaming at his friends to help him, and he blew up along with three of his squad mates. Now, with the Humans in a more manageable state, only five remained. The Kig-Yar came back out from hiding and returned fire.

The Sangheili fired until the last Human dropped to the ground. Although that very same one threw a grenade at the Kig-Yar before falling, Cesa was left only with his fellow Sangheili. He walked over to the makeshift barricade, and saw that it was still alive.

The vermin said something that he could not understand, and then shot it. With the Human dead, he returned to his brethren.

"Good job, 'Furnumee. I will tell my superiors of your accomplishments in battle. But, with our entire squad lost, we must return to the Prophet of Regret's flagship, The _Pride and Justice_." Cesa's superior called for a dropship, and they waited patiently for it to come to them.

"Thank you, Excellency. I will try to do my best in our next engagement." Cesa replied.

"I would hope so. Although we will no longer be battling here, at least until we get replacements. But, do not look upon our situation as bleak, for you will surely get a promotion for your accomplishment."

Cesa knew the promotion bit was just to cheer him up for not being in combat anymore, but he doubted he would actually be promoted upon his first day in combat.

* * *

Corporal Wally Dane knew it was over when that plasma bolt struck him in the chest. He fell down to the ground. He was trying to crawl away, even though the effort was pointless. What he did not expect, was for the Elite son of a bitch to walk over to him and kick him over. Dane could see the bastard looking at him. 

"You go to Hell! You go to Hell and you die!" The Corporal was about to say something else, but the next thing that Wally knew was pitch black.

* * *

Cesa 'Furnumee almost walked into one of the bulkheads before he realized that they were at their required destination. A few units of time was all it took to service and repair the FTL drive. Cesa left the Human ship from a Phantom dropship, and was transported back to the ship he resided on.

* * *

Alexandra, Drake, and Carl finally got the FTL drive on their battered ship working. After reaching the bridge, they turned the consoles on, and input the proper codes in to reach _Earth_. Being that the Covenant have already found, they saw no reason to use the Cole Protocol's system to get back to Earth, not to mention they were near a dead planet that the Covenant had no use for. 

A few hours later, they entered back into real space. They got a hailing call, and responded.

_"This is the OD platform, _Osiris_. We have identified your ship as the _UNSC Higheron_. Respond immediately, or you _will _be destroyed."_

Alexandra took note of the emphasis on the word will "This is Spartan 067, along with Spartan 103 and Spartan 041. Requesting immediate assistance and current events."

Apparently, the comm. officer was surprised to hear a human voice, much less that voice belonging to a Spartan, because it took a few seconds for him to respond.

_"O-One moment please."_ There was static for a second until a gruff voice sounded. _"Spartan 067, please let me in on where in gods' name you've been?"_

"Certainly, sir. Me, Spartan 103, and 041 were on missions to far away to receive our Mark V Mjolnir Battle Armor. So, we just went and holed up in the Jericho system while sustaining ourselves on the ships' galley and repairing it constantly. Once we got the comm. channels back online, we were able to find out that the Covenant attacked Earth, and now we have an alliance with the Elites, Grunts, and Hunters. That is all we know, sir."

_"Very well, Spartan 067, you've got quite a bit to catch up on."_

The person on the radio with the Spartans concluded the recent events, and let it sink in.

"Yes sir. I understand completely. However, we need the Mjolnir Mark VI Battle Armor, we currently have the Mark IV version."

_"Yes, I can see where that could cause problems. We'll send over a Pelican, and you can dock with us. We can receive three suits within two hours from Songnam."_

"Understood, sir. We shall wait."

* * *

**A/N: Whew! OK, now you guys and gals finally know who Alexandra, Drake, and Carl are! Slayer you should be happy now, but you may have figured it out from my hint I gave you. At any rate, Cesa 'Fortumee's first name is pronounced; Say sa. I'll get to work on the next chapter ASAP, but I hope you guys like this chapter. It was certainly hard to write, what, with combining everything into a linear story and all... Anyways, I hope you all liked it, and have a great day! I would very much like reviews, so please, do it. And BTW, Retenkos is the new name for the Sangheili (Elite's) Homeworld.  
**


	12. Thunder Underground

**A/N: Sorry for the long update folks, school has kinda ruined my schedule. And the fact that I was just on vacation doesn't help much either, I s'pose. And before you go on about something you'll end up catching in this chapter, yes, I know I messed up the Prophet's name, so it's gonna be fixed in this chapter. His name is the Prophet of Sin, but I spaced out the other times and wrote Prophet of Truth, unless I'm getting senile already. Meh, just read the chapter and enjoy it. Oh yeah, and thanks for not killing me.**

**Chapter 12: Thunder Underground**

* * *

While the three Spartans were gearing up, they were examining the new weapons. From new assault rifles, a snipers rifle, and even new vehicles, they would want to test them out. But that was for another time.

"I'm sure glad that we're finally on the offensive. The only space battles that we've won only stalled the Covenant. But now with this alliance, I'm sure that things will go smoothly" Drake said.

"Yeah. I just wonder how it will be to work with these Elites now?" Charles wondered.

"Well, if Master Chief can get along with them, I don't see why we can't. Plus, like the Admiral said, we can't win without 'em."

Alexandria and her team were getting ready to board a transport ship, one of many, containing supplies for UNSC troops on Lobonikos.

They would be able to test all new weapons, excluding the vehicles, once in slipspace.

* * *

Master Chief and his team were in their ready room. Fred was sleeping, Kelly was doing maintenance work on her armor, and Linda was at the ships firing range. John, however, was busy cleaning his weapons.

He always did this after his first mission, and laid them out in neat rows with his remaining ammunition, side by side. During the mission to capture the capital of Lobonikos, he had used 4 clips of ammo for his MA5B, and the barrel was slagged in the process, 5 clips from his MA8B, and 2 clips of his pistol. He also used 6 of his 8 fragmentation grenades.

Just then, the intercom buzzed with Admiral Reiners voice.

"Master Chief and Captain Adoest, please report to the bridge immediately. That is all."

He got up, and walked to the elevator down the hallway.

When he arrived at the Command Deck, he saw that Adoest was only a few rooms in front of him. The captain must of heard him, because he turned around and said hello. John nodded and walked through the door, with the captain behind him.

The Admiral greeted them, "hello, Master Chief, Adoest. We have much to discuss. Come over here."

The Admiral led them to one of the new holopanels installed on the ships. What flashed to life on it though, was something John hoped to never see again.

"It appears, that we have found another Halo. The Arbiter and part of his fleet are coming along with us to help destroy it. Now, this Halo, like the other two you have been on, Master Chief, is loaded with the Flood. However, they haven't been released out of their prisons, but we are sending more forces than we should need."

The Master Chief remembered his first encounter with the Flood. A certain memory, where an infection form actually got _through his suit_, and tapped his spinal cord, was only killed by Cortana sending a shock wave of energy through the shielding system. He shivered at the thought, and banished it from his mind.

"Now, the Elites have told me that they have to take operations on the ring, so we have to land ground forces there, instead of blowing it to bits. Which is why the admiralty has expressed great distress amongst themselves."

"Sir, yes sir. I will prepare my team with whatever supplies we need."

"No, that is unnecessary for the time being. We are sending three engineering platoons down first with proper supplies to build and fortify more than a few larges base for up to four weeks each. Then they will be recalled, and many troops will be sent down. Heavy armor and light mechanized will arrive for them after a 16 hour wait period for the marines to get settled."

Master Chief nodded, and thought it over.

The Admiral continued on, "You Spartans and team Grau Falk will only be deployed if the Flood get released. Which, should not happen, under any circumstances. But if need be, you will be sent down." The Admiral dismissed them, and went back to directing his fleet.

* * *

The Arbiter was busy directing his fleet when news came in about the new discovery. He was shocked, to say the least, when he heard it. His first thought was to blow it up until nothing remained except it would only be a memory. But then came another thought, _if we can capture the Monitor for this installation, we may be able to sway those of us who still follow the Prophet of Sin._

"Communications, send word that another of the Halos have been found. We are to move out towards it, with some of our fleet." The Arbiter looked at a holopanel and selected 23 ships from the roster, "tell these ships. We are also to send out construction platoons to build and sustain a few bases. Let us make haste."

As 40 ships moved out into slipspace, the rest of the fleet would stay at Lobonikos to defend their new position.

After the trip through slipspace, the Arbiter, his fleet, and the Human fleet got a good look at the ring world. It looked almost exactly like the first one he saw, with the exception that the outer skin of the ring was tinted blue.

He gave an order for 15 Phantoms and the same amount of Apparitions to go down to the ring. The Phantoms would carry all of the heavy equipment and could hold a large number of troops. The Apparitions would carry in Spectres, Ghosts, and Shades. The Humans were sending down 25 Pelicans, and 15 Albatrosses, if his scanner read correctly.

_"A very large amount of troops, yes. But it will be necessary, if the Flood break out",_ the Arbiter thought.

* * *

As the Albatross that Technical Sergeant Jason Denelli was in started to enter the atmosphere of the ring world called Halo, he was wondering of what importance it was to the Admirals to send this many troops down. He dismissed it and decided that it was a prize for one of the Admirals.

He examined the transport, as he was used to riding in Pelicans. There room he was in was the main cargo bay, which was basically a square, and behind him led into the pilot's room, which was where the Albatross was flown, and below decks were the barracks for any squad of soldiers accompanying the cargo itself. Instead of the usual dull gray found on most transports, the primary Albatross paint scheme was a dark green, like that of a Warthog.

"Touchdown in 10... 9... 8... 7..." the pilot announced over the intercom.

When the countdown finished, a whistle sounded, and chains were heard as the drop-door fell to the ground. As the construction mechs were moving towards the designated building zone, Denelli took a look at the scenery.

With rolling hills, a mountain in the background, and even a waterfall, complete with a lake and trees, he thought that the place was beautiful. He was suddenly driven back into reality as his captain slapped him on the back of his helmet and he started to get to work. After all, building three fortified bases for 500 troops each plus vehicles was not going to be easy. Not only that, but there was gonna be two smaller bases built in-between the three other bases for the 104th Medical Battalion. Each of the two small bases would hold 30 troops from that battalion.

After a period of 36 hours, the 65th and 84th Engineering Platoons were able to finish the main bases. Denelli could hear inbound Pelicans, most likely carrying in the Marines to occupy the bases. Now Denelli and his fellow engineers had to build the two MASH bases. He was tired, and only got around 4 hours of sleep, but he was confident that they would be able to do it fast. Luckily for them, everything was pre-fab, which is why they were able to build the bases so fast.

* * *

As the Arbiter watched his the Phantoms and Apparitions become tiny specs on his view screen, he had other matters to attend to. He opened up a channel with the Human Admiral. He saw that he was talking to Fleet Admiral Reiner.

"Well, Admiral. My troops are being sent down to construct their bases, then after a days' rest, they will begin their search for the Artifact."

_"Very good, Arbiter. Be sure to have your troops build at least withing a mile of our bases, in case anyone needs assistance."_

"Yes, Admiral." The Arbiter then told his comm officer to do that. "After my troops finish and start to rest, we shall begin our search, until then, your troops may try if they want to."

_"Alright. We'll get to start on that soon" the Admiral finished._

* * *

While pacing the Command Deck, Tranalus, the Jiralhanea commanding the ship _Blinding Destiny_, which command the _Fleet of Sacred Might_, was growing irritated. The Prophet of Sin, who had sent his battle group here, was not letting him attack. Even though he had his orders, he would at least send out a Seraph patrol, on the other side of the planet that was masking his presence.

* * *

Lieutenant Filner was busy getting his 'hogs into gear for the scouting mission. His objective was towards arbitrary south, which was through the small forest. Filner was commanding four 'hogs and three Mongoose ATVs. One of the 'hogs was a troop carrier, and could hold up to one squad of fully armed troops. Two of the 'hogs were using Gauss Turrets, and the lead 'hog used an GP turret. Normally a patrol run wouldn't need this much firepower, but they sent along his unit anyway.

Halfway along the ride of their maximum allowable distance, they encountered a structure that led into the ground. It's entrance was large enough to let two Scorpions pass through side by side. The Lieutenant sent in the three ATVs first, and they would radio back if nothing was wrong. After ten minutes passed, there was still no contact. So the lieutenant decided to bring everyone with him into the tunnel.

After about five minutes, they found themselves inside of a cavernous room. They road that they were on was raised about a meter above ground. Directly ahead of them was what he assumed was a bridge. He pulled to a stop right in front of it, and got out. He then put his foot on it and was surprised he encountered resistance from it. He gave an all clear sign, got back into his Warthog, and drove across it, hoping that they wouldn't fall through the bridge.

After they got through the tunnel on the other side, they went deeper into the structure and encountered a strange, thick green mist, that made it slightly hard to breathe.

A few seconds later, they found empty ATVs. 3 of them. There was green and red gore on the surrounding area.

"Echo Base, this is Lieutenant Filner, do you copy?" He got static for a few seconds, and repeated the message. Then he finally got a response.

"This is Echo Base, we copy"

"We got a problem here, Echo Base. All three of our ATVs were just found inside of this tunnel complex we found about 7 or 8 minutes ago. There is some blood, no bodies, and the ATVs are still running. There's also a bunch of shell casings on the ground, and some of the blood, is green."

"Roger that, Lieutenant. Conduct a short sweep of the area, and report back to base."

"Acknowledged, Echo Base. Over and out."

Alright, everyone, get into the vehicles, we're conducting a short sweep of the area to make sure we don't find any surprises when we come back here." He pointed at one of the Gauss 'hogs, and then at the troop transport. "I want you two to head over there, and do a regulation patrol. Me and the other 'hog will be going and the left side of this tunnel."

As the 'hogs started up and moved into patrol routes, the Lieutenant told three of the marines in the troop transport to go back to base. He then got back into his own Warthog, and told the driver to move out. During the patrol, before they even finished half of the leg, they started hearing gunshots. So they raced back to the two other 'hogs patrol route, and found the two vehicles battling little tiny creatures, and also things that looked a lot like Humans.

So when the gunner in his and his fellow 'hogs' gunner opened fire on the things, he wanted to make them stop. But his instincts told him to fire away with them. After he plugged a few of the little white pods that were trying to attack them, he saw that they popped so easily. He then decided to throw a frag into the chaos, and got the satisfying _boom _as it went off. The sound was amplified due to the large cavernous tunnel.

A whole bunch of them exploded, then they started to chain react from their own explosions. By now, most, if not all of the little bastards were dead. They now focused their attention on the human-like creatures. Filner put half a clip of his MA8B into one of them, and was shocked that it got back up after it fell, and continued like nothing just happened to it.

Although, they proved to succumb to the massive power of a Gauss round, as they, like any other being in existence, would blow apart after such an explosive impact. However, after the victory of the skirmish, they didn't notice the one bipedal creature getting closer. After a small amount of time, however, one of the Marines saw it and shouted to the others. When they started firing at it, though, they were bewildered when it fired a weapon of its own.

"They can use guns? Fuck!" One marine decided to yell over the noise of their own guns.

A marine fell down from his Warthogs passenger seat, screaming, "I'm hit!"

After seeing one of their own falling, they opened fire once more, trying to down the bastard who just killed one of their friends. Once the Gauss was able to find its mark, however, the thing blew apart, with green gore on the ground, almost invisible from the blast mark the ground had received from the explosion. Although it was raining green blood and various body parts, there was no crater where there should have been.

After Filner calmed down, he contacted Echo Base and told them the bad news. He got an order to fall back to base and take the Private who got hit to one of the MASH bases.

He gave the order, and carried the marine into the troop transport. When the infantry squad looked him over, they saw that it was not plasma scoring, but instead it was a bullet hole. And he was going to bleed out if they didn't stop they bleeding and bandage him up real quick. During the 20 minute ride, they were able to do all of that.

When they got him into the MASH base, he was sent to pre-op, and all they could do was wait. After the Lieutenant got his vehicle squad back into the mechanics bay, his troops went to their barracks, or the Mess Hall. He started on his paperwork.

* * *

After his comm officer told him the bad news, Reiner swore out loud.

"Get Team Grau Falk and the Spartans up here, ASAP."

His comm officer used the loudspeaker, and all the Admiral could do was wait.

* * *

**A/N: Well, what'd ya think? I know it's a bit short, but a lot of stuff has really ruined my schedule. Sorry for the long update, and that it couldn't be longer. But, writer's block strikes almost every time I try to think of something to write, so we're all lucky that I got it out this far.**


	13. Public Service Announcement

**Public Service Anouncement:**

I have not given up on this fic, I have regrettably put it off for some time now, though much writers block and two family trips have also plagued me. I apologize for my abscence of over 4 months now. I hope you will all forgive me, but fear not! I shall update with another chapter, which will be at least double than that of my usual!

Also, I am going to be changing my Pen Name here to Warbirds, hopefully it won't confuse anyone.

I'm just posting this here to let you all know I'm not dead yet.

**-Warbirds-**


	14. Preperations

**A/N: Sorry for not updating in... well, forever. So I made it much longer than usual. I have no excuses for not updating other than laziness and a ten day vacation, so I apologize to you all. Anyway, back to the matter at hand. Read the fic, enjoy it, and don't send me death threats telling me to write more (I've actually gotten one, I'll let it go this time), as they're illegal, and it makes me want to not write this as much. So here you go.**

**Chapter 13: Preparations**

After the Admiral had briefed both Spec Ops teams, they were sent down to the Humans encampment. The Spartans arrived at Alpha base, and Grau Falk arrived at Charlie base. He also sent down a few teams of Advisors to tell the marines of the threats they might be engaging.

A team of 5 Advisors were sent to each base, even the MASH bases. Each team was made up of 3 ONI Specialists and a specially made AI. They were able to make AIs more easily now that they had access to The Reclaiming Glory's stockpile of recourses, even if Human access was rather limited.

* * *

Lieutenant Dreinir was getting setting everything up along with his fellow ONI operatives. Of course Dreinir's actual rank was far greater than any actual Lieutenant would have, it was ONI's typical way of getting every operative incorporated with the Marine Corps. He mentally reviewed his schedule again. He had to brief over 500 marines, in just 3 days. A briefing typically lasted two hours long, with video clips and slide shots taken by the AI Cortana, while she was at Installation 04.

About 20 minutes later, after he and his team had gotten everything set up, and after he had a brief meal, he got ready and went to the podium he was supposed to stand at. As the first briefing began, the Marines filed into the mess hall and took up seats or standing positions. He began.

"Now, as you all know, this briefing was called to inform you of a new enemy. This enemy..." he paused to create a greater effect, " is called the Flood. They are grotesque creatures, with many different and startling abilities. The types of Flood are as follows," the slide show currently had a picture of a bunch of Infection Forms. "These little bastards you see here are called infection forms. While they are extremely weak alone, they are a major threat to you, especially when they are in hordes."

"They are gaseous creatures, that will pop with the slightest amount of force you exert on them. And when they are group, if you were to shoot one, it would explode, and usually make a chain reaction, causing other nearby infection forms to explode. Although, this makes them far from easy targets. If they get to close to you, you better shoot them down. Because if they get close enough where they're able to leap up. onto your back, they will drive a penetrator down your neck, and turn you into something that looks like this."

That's when the slide show turned to the next picture, of a mutilated man, still wearing combat boots, his fatigues, although his shirt was missing, he still had arm sleeves. Where his chest should have been, all you could see were a few hanging organs, the spinal cord, and bits of his entrails. The skin was tinged green, and his head was thrown back into a position of which was not natural. You could still see the pained expression on the marines lifeless face, and even bits of hair. There were little antennae like things coming out of his upper chest and neck, and one of the arms was elongated, to twice it's normal length, with tentacle-like whips protruding where the fingers should be. The other arm was still fine, and was wielding an MA5B assault rifle.

The Lieutenant paused for a few moments to let it sink into the Marines shocked expressions. A few even had to go outside and vomit.

"This... thing, that you see here, was once like you and I, a normal, functional, human being. But, the Flood, provided the infection forms get to you, will turn you into this kind of form. These are called Combat Forms, and they have superhuman strength, they can operate and wield weapons, manned positions, hell, even vehicles, if they get their filthy hands on them."

"The only guaranteed thing that will kill these bastards is killing the infection form inside it. That's right," the Lieutenant said, as he saw the expressions of disbelief and fear on the faces of the marines, "those infection forms will deflate themselves enough to get inside your chest cavity, and that's how you become like this man once was."

"Otherwise, even if you blow an arm off of the thing, more tentacles will grow out of it. However, if you destroy all of it's limbs, it is then deemed ineffective in combat by higher officials, although we've never actually documented this being done. Now, if you kill the infection form inside of a combat form, and it falls to the ground, make sure that you destroy it's entire midsection, because another infection form can burrow into the chest cavity of the Flood's fallen warriors, and reanimate them. That is why are issuing M7075 Defoliant Projectors, or Flamethrowers, to every single platoon. These things are by far, the most effective thing to use against them, next to the shotgun."

"Now, since we have a fleet of ships equipped with armories in space, we have almost unlimited canisters of fuel for the flamethrowers. This, does not, however, mean that you can waste the ammo. There should be about 200 canisters of fuel in the armory in this base in about," he looked at his watch, "30 minutes from now. Your platoon leaders will decide who gets the flamethrowers, as we are limiting each platoon 5 flamethrowers each."

The Lieutenant was getting ready to rest after the briefing finally ended. The other two ONI Specialists that were sitting in chairs before were going to handle the next two briefings. That AI they were given was doing better than he ever could after about an hour through it. So he just let it take over and he answered any questions the Marines had.

* * *

While the Spartans were getting used to the Mark VI Armor, Alexandria and Drake were sparring, and Charles was at the firing range, as usual. Though Charles liked the new weapons, namely the MA8B, he was going to always keep his trusty MA5C at hand. He didn't like the B variant of the MA5, mostly because of it's full-auto feature.

With the steady _clack-clack-clack_ of the weapons in the firing range, Charles felt at home, even if it wasn't actual combat. While the three once-lost Spartans felt at relative ease, something sinister was always lurking behind the scenes.

* * *

Colonel Ackerson was deep inside the Hive back on Earth. It was Hell getting through all of the security checkpoints, even after the alliance had been made official. Section Two did a brilliant job of making the remaining civilian population believe that the Elites were so weak after the decades long war, that they needed our help. While Ackerson didn't have the full details on what they told the civilians, exactly, he did not really care.

After he went through the 12th security checkpoint, lazily doing fingerprint scans, reading voice profile tests, or using the oral designators, he inwardly sighed and looked at the ODSTs standing guard, ready to blow him apart should he even sneeze. He wished he could have the feeling of the gun on his hands once again. It had been far too long, after 14 years of desk work, backstabbing, and just about any other thing, he just wanted to have the feeling of satisfaction when the first round entered the chamber, ready to fire, and to hear the _clacking_ noise and the beat against his shoulder from his younger days.

But, he had more important things to do, like getting back to his work on his black-ops project. When he finally got to his desk, he found his portable pad beeping on his desk. He sat down and opened the message:

**United Nations Space Command ALPHA PRIORITY TRANSMISSION 193741J-91**

**Encryption Code: Black/**

**Public Key: **Inexistent

**From: **Vice Admiral Thomas Callard (UNSC Service Number: 37294-09285-TC)

**To: **Colonel James Ackerson (UNSC Service Number: 38902-93852-JA)

**Subject: **Black-Ops Project

**Classification: Restricted, BGX Directive, Protocol 817-3B**

**//Start File//**

Well, Ackerson, it seems that you've crossed the line, again. I know that you want to keep your project, and I know that you'll do anything to keep it, but threatening the Commander of Allied Forces?! You've got to be kidding me, James. I've covered for you more than once, but this time, you're on your own, more or less, anyway.

Now, because your project has intrigued the guys at Section Zero, they've given you more funding, and have convinced Admiral Hood to let you off. You will _definitely_ not have another mistake like that, James, or you _will_ be tried for treason, and then Section Zero takes over your project. And you know how they operate, far worse than you ever can.

So long for now, James, and tread lightly. They won't cave into your demands as easily, and don't even think about trying it with those Elites.

Callard

**//End File//Press ENTER to Acknowledge and Delete all traces of this file//**

_Great_, thought James. _Now I have to deal with Section Zero. At least they saved me from a court martial._ He then decided to get back to his work.

* * *

Captain Jakonavich was doing combat maneuvers with his tank squadron. Jakonavich and his squadron were one of the first to get outfitted with the new tanks, nicknamed, 'Raptors' for their ability to strike quickly and viciously. The tanks excelled highly in controlled tests, with new Titanium-B armor protecting the tank, standard issue ceramic titanium armor on the outside to protect from small arms fire, and every single Raptor tank produced was outfitted with a small shield generator, courtesy of the Reclaiming Glory, which protected the entire crew area inside the tank.

There were also hard points on the tank hulls, and the captain and his squadron had bribed the engineers with anything they could scrounge up to weld extra armor plating anywhere it could be fitted onto, so the tanks would have extra armor to boot.

With the addition of the double barreled cannons, they had a coaxial .50 caliber machine gun, a bow mounted .30 caliber machine gun, and for extra protection, the had another .50 caliber machine gun on top of the turret, in case they were facing large amounts of infantry. It also had one smoke grenade launcher on the left side of the turret, and an EMP grenade launcher mounted on the right side.

After Jakonavich saw the fake targets set up for their maneuvers, he ordered for the turret of each tank to swivel and fire at will.

After 4 muffled thumps echoed out from the tanks, they each prepared to fire the other gun. During the firing of their second salvos, the explosions from the first rounds hit their targets. The Captain smiled in satisfaction as the models of Wraiths were hit by the 88mm shells. Then a second set of explosions to make sure that the enemy tanks were down.

The tanks plowed their way through the forest to link up with a squadron of RG tanks for cooperation training. Once they met up with the RG tanks, they communicated through radio traffic. The Elite told them of the next training mission they would be going through. Apparently, Command had set up a fake Covenant base with the help of the RG forces. They were to assault the base, destroy the defenses, breakthrough the outer walls, and destroy everything in sight.

* * *

Rali 'Boralanee was a little surprised at the Human tanks. He had never seen a Human tank that looked like that. They also had green and tan camouflage painted on them, and the array of weapons he saw on the tanks partially scared him. He hoped to himself that he would never get on the bad side of another Human tank in his life.

The plan for this training mission was unit cohesion, getting the RG and Human Tankers familiar with each other, so that they could operate with efficiency. The RG tanks would stay behind that human tanks, providing mortar support, and short ranged artillery. The humans, of course, had self-propelled artillery of their own, but it was usually held back for large scaled maneuvers.

While the human tanks sputtered forwards, the low whine of the Wraiths followed behind them. The Human tanks were moving forward in a rough diamond formation, and the RG tankers were following suit in a reversed 'V' formation. They were at a speed that was the rough equivalent of 40 kilometers per hour.

These Humans have more tanks than I previously thought. Maybe they are better in combat too, they definitely look it. Rali wondered. _I hope that there are enemy forces here, too. I would certainly not want that power to go to waste if I were the Humans._

In half a unit, they had cleared the distance, and could see the fake enemy base on the horizon. Once they saw the base, the RG tanks tilted their mortar canons, and let loose with three salvos of plasma bombs each. The first shots were to short, and exploded into the grass about 30 meters in front of the base. The second salvo of 6 shots were a bit closer, but still missed. Finally the third salvo of shots hit the outer wall of the base.

The human tanks then opened fire with their cannons. A muffled thump echoed out as the shells left their barrels, then a thunderous boom after they hit the walls and the turrets of the base. Then each human tank fired a second salvo, four more shots, which then collapsed whatever remained of the outer wall.

After the smoke cleared, 'Boralanee could see a hole that went through one of the towers, and the hole continued through metals and alloys until the end of the shells journey, which was in one of the buildings in the main compound.

'Boralanee told his squadron of tanks to open fire again. After 'Boralanee's second salvo, they leveled another part of the base. Then the humans once again opened fire. A customary thump that rumbled the ground beneath them, then an explosion as the shells achieved what they were meant to.

He opened a comm channel to the lead human tank. "Captain, I suggest that we finish this excursion. It is getting late, and my squadron needs rest after a long day."

"Roger that. We'll just fire a few more rounds to break in the barrels and we'll be on our way" was the human Captains' response.

After the Raptors had finished their rounds, they went back through the forest, through the path they came, and were soon out of sight.

Rali told his squadron to get back to base as fast as possible because there were already reports Flood breakouts all over the place. The humans had only one or two Flood breakouts because the RG forces had the unfortunate decision of setting up closer to where the Flood was released.

It took them much longer to get back to base because one of his tanks broke down. Rali cursed the new hover drives that were being tested in his squadron. Out of all of the tank units in the many RG armies, his unit was placed in giving comments and input on the new equipment.

Even though the Huragok were master craftsman, they were not perfect. Rali found this out a long, long time ago in combat. He briefly shook the memory out of his thoughts, and called a squad of Sangheili with a few Huragok engineers to repair the tanks.

After waiting awhile, his troops were placed on guard rotation. Some of his subordinates were getting tired, and therefore their combat efficiency would decrease, tremendously. As a Shadow troop transport arrived, the current set of guards stopped them and asked for identification. They complied, and were approved, then told to move on to their Commanders' tank.

The Sangheili in charge of the engineer squad was wearing dark green armor, signifying he was of either the engineer or science division. "Greetings, commander. Which tank are we to repair?"

'Boralanee then pointed to his right and said, "that one. It has been giving us trouble since day one! I am left wondering why we were picked for experimental equipment. Now, I appreciate the lifting of the ban on altering Forerunner technology, but I really think that new things should be tested out before we are issued it!" Rali ranted on until he was satisfied and calmed down.

"I am sure that your squadron was picked for a reason, however, the High Council works in mysterious ways, my friend."

"Yes" Rali responded, "yes I know it well. It justs infuriates me at times. Well, the tank is over there, please fix it. I do not like the darkness as much as I used to since I came here. And I would rather not be out here for much longer."

"I know what you mean. We will see to it that your tank is fixed as quickly and make sure it is done right. Some of the new technicians are... inexperienced at this." Then the lead engineer walked off with the three Huragok and two other Sangheili.

It took two long units of waiting to get through repairs. When they were finally done, he thanked each of the engineers personally, and when his tankers were rested up and ready, they got back in and took off for their base in the distance.

* * *

"Damn, Captain. Where the Hell are we?"

"Don't worry. We just need to clear these forests, then we should be able to get back to base."

The first man laughed. "And just where is base, it's getting dark."

"I said don't worry. Now shut up, and let me figure out what to do." Jakonavich told the other tank commander.

Somehow, even with all of the advanced equipment and proper training they had, they still got off the pathway, and gotten themselves lost. Now 4 tanks were in a tactical column, making their way through a dark and dank forest.

The tankers were extremely surprised when it started raining, and a few of the guys decided to sit on top of the turret until it happened. They cursed and got back in the tank as soon as possible.

Soon they were back in the open fields, but the bases were no where in sight. Jakonavich cursed under his breath after he realized he was lost. They saw a Forerunner building in the distance, but there was so much mist that the building seemed far away.

"Mr. Kazantsev" he said to the driver, "take us to that building" he said as he pointed to the alien structure in front of them.

* * *

The Arbiter was watching his view screens. A planet, which the Humans dubbed, _'Arotha' _was taking up most of the view. The planet was roughly the size of _Threshold_, loomed in the distance. It even looked like _Threshold_, but he knew it was a different planet. The Ring World orbited the planet, though there was no moon on the other side of the ring.

The planet was huge, even if it was as big as _Threshold_. It could easily contain an enemy fleet, and his suspicions were confirmed when his navigations officer alerted him to enemy Seraphs. Seraphs were only short-ranged craft, so there was definitely an enemy cruiser, or possibly even a carrier.

He had integrated a few Human vessels into his fleet, and the Humans were understandably nervous, with ten ships in the middle of an entire battle group. He told his Comm Officer to open up a channel with one of the vessels.

On the main video channel, a human wearing the insignia of a captain appeared. He appeared to be surprisingly calm. "Captain, I would like you to send 3 stealthed scout drones to the far side of that planet. I have reason to believe there is an enemy fleet hiding in it's shadow."

The Captain replied, _"Will do, Arbiter."_ The Captain turned to someone off screen then. _"Lieutenant Fischer, send out three Clarion Spy Drones to the far side of _Arotha_. I want them running silent so they won't be detected."_ The Captain turned back to the camera. _"Now I guess we'll just have to wait, eh Arbiter?"_

"Yes, I suppose we shall. When they collect their data, I want to review it as soon as possible."

_"Very well, Arbiter. I'll have the data to you ASAP."_

The Arbiter nodded and turned off the view screen.

_I know there is a fleet on the other side of that planet. But how do I lure them out? And I wonder if they were smart enough to set up a ground encampment on the Ring World? I suppose Time will be the informer to this situation._

His navigations officer gave word that a battle group of near 70 ships were exiting slip space just behind them.

"Tell all ships to power on shields on charge their weapons. They may be hostile"

The comm officer nodded at the order. When the ships exited slipspace, they registered as 'friendly' when the FoF tags read their transponders. The Arbiter inwardly sighed in relief.

A comm channel opened with the face of Dosu 'Furnumee.

The Arbiter had a look of surprise on his face. When he recovered, he asked his old friend what he was doing here.

_"Why, I am here to help, Arbiter. We may have gained the upper hand, but this is one of the Prophets, 'Sacred Rings'_", Dosu scoffed. _"Would they not protect it with all their might?"_

"You have a point there, Fleet Master. Although, we had conquered the Jiralhanae homeworld quite easily compared to what I was expecting."

_"I agree, although I think that the Covenant is in chaos, because of recent events, and that is why they have been..." Dosu searched for the right word, "not thinking things through."_

"Well, that may be. But, the Prophets may be planning a ploy of some sort. I am keeping my eyes open for anything out of the ordinary for the Prophets to do."

On the screen, Dosu nodded. Then, a Sangheili Major walked up to him and said something that the Arbiter could not hear. After the Major had disappeared off screen, Dosu looked a slightly alarmed.

"What is it?" The Arbiter wanted to know.

_"It is a scout ship that we sent ahead of us. It most likely did not register on your scanners because of how far away it is from us, but it has detected an enemy fleet behind the planet. From this report, it appears that they're leaving the cover of the planet and that they are charging towards us! I will get my fleet ready and up to combat alert."_

The Arbiter nodded, and did the same. He alerted the Human fleet, and they repeated the actions of the two RG battlegroups. For now, they waited for the enemy ships to get into firing range.

* * *

Tranalus was growing extremely irritated at the new Prophets' decision. In fact, when an enslaved Unggoy came into the Command Deck and told him the Seraph patrol he sent out earlier was destroyed, he destroyed the creature, ripping it limb from limb, in a fit of rage. He called for a Huragok to come in shortly after to clean up the mess.

He was craving action, like all of his fellow brethren. He longed to have the smell of Sangheili blood on his hands, to feel the joy of the kill, to kill what has caused The Great Schism through out the Covenant, to kill the vile filth that has conquered his home world. _ The Traitors have even allied themselves with the pitiful Humans_. Tranalus laughed. _They shall not get away that easily. We shall give them a fight! Even though we are outnumbered, we shall get reinforcements, if Pride has any common sense._

Though the thought of his homeworld, once glorious, in all of its majesty, now conquered, pillaged, and raped by the Sangheili and Humans made his blood boil, to the point where he could go on a rampage and destroy everything in his path, but he calmed himself with the thought of the Great Journey. The Great Journey and all of its many great promises. And how the Filth that were not bestowed with the gift would burn in Eternal Damnation.

Even the Jiralhanae, as ignorant as they were to their surroundings, knew that after their homeworld was conquered, that they had nothing left except the thought of the Great Journey. Thankfully, they had been able to colonize one other world with the Prophets' help before the Great Schism. This, 'world' was a mere moon, orbiting the Prophets' own home planet. But, unusually, this moon had the capacity to enable the creation of life on its surface. And the Prophets, mainly the Prophet of Truth, decided it would make an excellent first line of defense outpost, to guard their own planet.

His fleet, if you could even call it that, was relatively small, at a strength of only 50 ships. Against normal Human ships, his fleet would be over sized for such an assignment. But the traitorous Sangheili gave them shields, and even plasma tech. The new Hierarchs, the Prophet of Sin was leading, and the Prophet of Pestilence, whose name symbolized everything that the Prophets stood for, and the Prophet of Life. They were also extremely stubborn, and big headed, like all Prophets were.

And this lead to the Prophets disbelief that the Sangheili gave the Humans plasma capabilities or ship-borne shielding. _The fools. This is their mistake. If they would just believe something for once, we could have an appropriate sized fleet._ He surveyed the scanners, the Humans and the Sangheili were idling about in space. He would make the Prophets believe, and his was the only ship to escape from Lobonikos after the Allied attack. And because they would not believe him, they ordered the Prophet of Pride, a minor Prophet, to survey the battle from his ship.

And Tranalus had the extreme misfortune of the Prophet wanting control of the mission. He had no choice but to accept his demands, unless he wanted to be humiliated and publicly executed. I may very well sacrifice myself and my ship just so we can be rid of these self-proclaimed Prophets. True, they are capable leaders, but they are poor tacticians, by any standards.

Tranalus then decided that it was time. He had fought in many battles, both before and after the Great Schism, and he was extremely capable in the military. Without consulting the Prophet, who was probably in sermon with the lesser races anyway, he ordered that all ships charge their reactors to 50 and divert the rest of their power to the main batteries. Shields would be covered by the auxiliary engines.

After that order, 50 ships came out of the darkness of the planet, and charged towards the Allied ships as fast as they could at half power.

* * *

**A/U: Not nearly as long as I hoped it could be, especially because of the time I was absent, but I just didn't like what I had after this. Plus, if I added it, it wouldn't really fit in well with the chapter title. I just hope you guys liked this chapter.**


	15. Bloody Arrow

**A/U: I know that I've had a recent influx of all these characters, but don't fret, most of them are merely supporting characters, meant to move the story along. Many of them were not planned to move beyond a few chapters after their creation. So you will all not have to worry about remembering all of the characters in my fic. I think that you'll all find (I hope you do, anyway, that) this chapter moved into an area you wouldn't have expected me to go into, so I hope you enjoy reading it.**

**Chapter 14: Bloody Arrow**

* * *

"Silence!," roared the head of the High Council, Tolna 'Draedomo. "As much as I may not like to admit it, the human construct was right. The Prophets have used us, brothers! They have made us toil around the galaxy for them, so they could activate the Halos, and escape death in the Ark! While we may not be on the best of terms with the humans, we shall certainly work to repay our debt to them."

"Very well, 'Draedomo," one of the other High Council members spoke. "Though I must warn you that whilst the older warriors will respect the humans, or at the very least, not try to kill them, what of the Watchmen, or of the new recruits? They have been fooled into thinking that we Sangheili have failed the Prophets! We have shut down four of the Acadamies already because the Watchmen have started to attack civilians and Elders because they think we have betrayed the Covenant."

Another spoke. "That is true, Councilor 'Brolnea. The Watchmen may not be as skilled as normal warriors, but they are still a threat. However, I have a plan that may very well convince those Watchmen that have not been fully corrupted by the Prophets' lies, though It will require assistance from the Humans."

"I am listening, present your proposal," the High Elder stated.

"I think that if we can get the Humans' cooperation for this effort, we can get all of the information that the human construct, Cortana, I believe it is called, to give us all of the data about the ring worlds, the Prophets' plans, everything."

"A sound proposal. I shall think this over for the time being. This meeting is adjourned."

The Sangheili left the Inner Sanctum after the stressful meeting. They would be called back in a few units to hear the High Elder's decision.

* * *

"Brothers," the Prophet of Sin started. "We have seen that the Humans and the Sangheili reclaim much of their lost territory, and also they have conquered the Jiralhanae homeworld. They've defeated two fleets, and most likely the battle group at the next Holy Ring. But fear not, for they shall recall a significant portion of the armada back to their home planets, with this next attack."

Pestilence and Life looked at each other, wondering what Sin had planned. They both watched as Sin pulled up a hologram star map. First shown was Retenkos, the Sangheili homeworld. Then, was the image of Earth, the Human homeworld, and home of the Ark.

"Now you are both wondering, 'what has dear brother Sin thought up?' Well I shall tell you. We are to send out two fleets, one to each world. The Humans shall most likely recall more vessels to their home than the Sangheili would for theirs, so this will make them open to attack. After these two fleets are sent out, and they begin their attacks, we shall launch two more fleets to Lobonikos. This will rout their forces, and cause them to retreat back to their home worlds, or at least their next stronghold."

Pestilence nodded in agreement. "Yes brother. This shall make the traitors pay, and hopefully, with the humans at a disadvantage, we can finally eliminate their kind from the face of existence."

"Now, now, brother Pestilence, we have much time for this to take place. And many things can go wrong. With the Gods on our side this should not happen, but we must prepare for the worst if it comes."

"Life is right, Pestilence. However, I do not plan on anything going off course. But alas," Sin sighed, "we must rely on the Jiralhanae for this. We alone can only plan. We are not warriors, we have lost that ability long, long ago. Let us pray, brothers. Pray that the Humans and traitors get what they deserve."

* * *

Admiral Reiner wasn't the least bit worried. The 40 Allied ships plus the reinforcements from Dosu 'Furnumee would be able to hold their ground against an enemy battle group of 50 vessels.

"Weapons, charge the MAC and the MAPC guns. Ready the Archers and charge the shields as well."

"Aye sir, guns and shields charging. Archer missiles are hot and primed. Awaiting fire orders."

"Get the Longsword squadrons ready, I want them in the black for single ship defense, boarding craft defense, and attacking runs against enemy ships."

"Aye sir. Transmitting orders." The ships' AI, Gregory, spoke.

The loudspeakers announced the usual when battles took place, and Marines, ODSTs, and fighter crews plus random tech officers rushed through the madness of combat prep.

"Uhh, Admiral? I think you should look at this," his Navigations Officer said.

Reiner walked over to the 2nd Lieutenant and bent over to look at the panel.

"It appears that the RG reinforcements appear to be making a slipspace jump out-system. I have not received any notification as to why."

"The bastards. Hail them! Before they leave."

"Aye, sir. Hailing RG Command Ship."

The Admiral was a little more nervous now. With only 40 ships against fifty, they would still win the battle, but with many more casualties. Especially considering that many of the UNSC Captains and Commanders in his battle group were inexperienced in ship to ship combat.

He walked to the main view screen, and on it the image of an Elite in gold armor appeared, giving out orders to his command crew.

"Fleet Master 'Furnumee, might you let me in on why you're leaving?" The Admiral questioned.

"My apologies, Admiral. But Retenkos is under attack by an entire fleet of Jiralhanae ships! My battle group and my brothers' have been called back to our homeworld, including many other Ship Masters. I am sorry for your plight, Admiral, but I currently have bigger problems at the moment. Good luck with your battle, we must stop their treachery from spreading any farther."

And before Reiner could speak again, the connection was cut, and the screen faded back to a dull gray. "Dammit," the Admiral said to himself.

"Helm, align us with the rest of the battle group." Gregory, I want all ships in position and for attacks to be maximized. Have Archers fired first, the fire all cannons at the Covenant. Make sure the MAC rounds hit after the shields are down, MAPCs can fire right away. Get targeting vectors for all ships in our group."

"Aye sir. Calculating target vectors, acquiring time solutions..." The AI droned on. When he finished, the Admiral sent out a FLEETCOM message, letting the Captains know what to do. Reiner hoped the Arbiter was not going to leave the battle as well, but a quick communique confirmed he was not going to and that calmed Reiner down a bit.

After the longest 20 seconds in his life ticked away, his view screen showed that the RG ships had launched their plasma torpedoes, which were devastating to any space-faring vessel in existence. They boiled through meters and meters of armor within seconds, and worse, they actually tracked their targets.

Having waited until the Covenant ships were in the Archer range, the AI ordered all missile batteries on all ships to be fired. _Thousands _of missiles fired into space, leaving exhaust trails that made it basically impossible to see for a few seconds before they dissolved into the blackness of space. Many of the missiles were destroyed by pinpoint laser fire from the enemy ships, but more than half survived to deliver their deadly payload.

Just before they Archers hit, the MACs went off, making a thud and causing the deck to rumble and the lights to dim for a second. The MAPCs went off right after the MACs went off, as well. After the Human and RG battle groups had dealt their blow to the enemy battle group, they found that the Covenant ships had released their payload as well. 50 blue balls of blinding blue plasma smashed into the Allied ships. Shields failed on a few ships, and they plasma boiled into the decks, starting fires, decompressing atmosphere, and generally causing mayhem among the ships hit by plasma.

A few ships were unlucky enough to have plasma melt into their hulls and superstructures so far that the plasma reached the reactors, and the ships imploded, sending debris into space. One ship, the _UNSC Nevada_, was hit by three plasma balls at once, causing it to transform into a molten slag in an instant. Luckily enough, the plasma was not strong enough to penetrate the reactors, but the command deck was completely obliterated. The superstructure was also completely bent and twisted, but most of the crew and Marine complement was still alive.

Now the Covenant and Allied ships were close enough that there would be little to no maneuvering. The FoF tags on each ship allowed for the Humans to not mistakenly fire on the RG ships. Which was a great feature, not only because they wouldn't damage their own vessels, but also because the targeting computer simply would not allow to fire on them, unless overridden by an AI construct.

But when it was close quarters combat in space, well that is where the Humans really shined in space combat. The Human ships were small enough to move in-between the enemy, and were fast enough that the plasma would not be able to track them efficiently. The 50mm MLAs would be able to riddle at the enemy's shielding, though it would surely not be as effective as Archers or a Longswords 110 and 120mm cannons, they were still effective, nonetheless.

Pinpoint lasers were still able to slice their way into the hulls of the Allied ships, and if you got rammed by one of those cruisers, you're ship was basically made of paper. A specific fight in this battle was taking place amidst the chaos. An RG Frigate fighting with a support Human Destroyer were against an enemy cruiser.

The destroyer's MAC gun was reloading as fast as it could, to pump round after round of hardened tungsten and various alloys into the shields of the cruiser. The frigate launched waves of plasma and pinpoint laser fire into it as well. However, the cruiser, being such a heavy tonnage, was outfitted with a plasma projector. This weapon, while not as powerful as the plasma beam cannon, was still able to slice ships in half effortlessly. Luckily enough, it required a massive power charge, and was not able to cycle quickly. But, it completely chopped the frigate in half, slicing the engine and reactor cores, making a bigger explosion.

The captain of the destroyer was nervous now. The cruiser had just destroyed the frigate next to his ship, in _one shot_. But he knew he had a job to do, and he intended to fight for Earth. The explosion, however, rocked the ship, and the MAC cannon was no longer on target of the cruiser.

The rotational thrusters on the destroyer moved the ship back into position. It fired another shot. The shields on the cruiser, however, weren't able to hold the stress of the shot and overloaded.

"Archers! Fire Archer pods 4F through 6G! Now!" The Captain yelled to his weapons officer.

360 Archer missiles rocketed through space, impacting upon the cruiser. The missiles were not hit by any anti-missile laser fire. The missiles created a hull-breach in the cruiser, and many of the Archers went trough it, into the various decks the hole spanned. But now, the cruiser was charging for one last plasma volley. The shields on the destroyer had collapsed not long ago, and if the volley was to hit them, then they would be turned into a molten slag.

A MAC round came out of nowhere and hit the front the front of the cruiser, sending it spinning to port. Another round did the same, and the ship was unable to control it's spin, and the original destroyer put another round into it, hitting the reactor, and turning the ship into a molten fireball, with Covenant alloys that were white hot, heated up to thousands of degrees, exploding outwards.

A small victory for the crew of the destroyer. But they were now engaging another threat, a Covenant destroyer. The shields were down, MAC cannon was charging, and the MAPC's magnetic coils had burnt out. The lateral lines of the Covenant ship heated up to a dull red glow, and they fired. The plasma traveled through space, and hit the ship front side, melting through meters of Titanium-A and bulkheads, the bridge along with it. The ship was now effectively dead in space, and the Covenant destroyer simply moved on, and engaged another target.

After 30 minutes of space combat, the Allied forces worn thin. The Covenant ships had received a reinforcement of more than 30 new ships, and the UNSC and RG vessels could just not hold back. They sent whatever supplies they could down to the bases on Halo, and jumped back to Lobonikos.

The scene after the Allied forces jumped was disastrous. Allied and Covenant ships littered the battlefield, engine cores still aglow, but the Covenant this time, had held their lines, and pushed back the Allies.

* * *

300 ships exited slip space. They were now in the Calliope system, which was the Sangheili's home system. A comm light blinked on the display. A voice feed played through, with a bit of static. "This is Outpost Dendral. Identify your fleet."

The Jiralhanae snorted with laughter. He nodded to his comm officer. "This is the Fleet of Everlasting Faith! Your pitiful race will fall before the might of the Covenant for your heresy!"

"Jiralhanae cur! You shall all perish!" Then the commander of the defense platform raised fleet wide alarms, and the dozens of stations similar to this turned to face the threat. Signal from the actual defense fleet said they would be arriving to help in about 20 units. Plasma turrets, torpedoes, and all manner of weaponry heated up, glowing various shades of red or blue, and launched salvos to the enemy fleet. But the enemy fleet had been able to get off the first shot, and obliterated many defense platforms and damaging many others.

However, even with all the damage done to the defending forces, the Sangheili had better plasma weaponry after the exchange with the Humans. Lances of plasma raced through the black and struck enemy vessels, burning through shields and hulls. Slower moving plasma torpedoes moved in for the kill, melting through deck after deck, and finishing off some off the ships that weren't destroyed. But after that salvo, only 40 enemy ships were destroyed. The Fleet of Everlasting Faith glided through space towards the defenses put up by the Sangheili. Each force launched salvos toward each other, inflicting more casualties to each other. Soon the defense platforms were all but gone, metal dust in space remained in place of where the defense platforms were. The defense fleet had finally arrived at the battle scene, only to witness the carnage that befell their line of resistance.

Right as the defense fleet had exited slipspace, what remained of the Jiralhanae fleet had opened fire upon them. Several ships were consumed in the salvo, but the Sangheili were quickly able to shrug off the blow to their fleet and return fire. It was over quickly. After the Fleet of Everlasting Faith had broken through the defenses, only a a few dozen remained. The commander of the defense fleet, had just received an urgent message from the Humans at their home planet.

The Fleet Master, De'al 'Litumee, was a fierce commander, and a brilliant strategist. His fleet was placed in charge of defending Retenkos from any attacks because his had the best record in deployments. With a little over 250 ships under his command, most of them over the destroyer class, De'al felt that he could take any challenge that faced him, and he was still keeping that thought true.

The Fleet Master wore what all other Fleet Masters wore, standard gold armor, polished to a high sheen, so that it glinted brightly in the light. An odd thing about his physical appearence was that instead of brown or black eyes, his were green, something that was quite unusual to most Sangheili. He was not overly large, but he was not small either. Being normally sized for a Sangheili, he was not overly intimidating, but those who had seen him in battle knew his size was only misleading. He'd built up quite a reputation for his accomplishments to those who have not seen him fight.

He turned to his communications officer, "send fifty ships to aid the Humans. If they lose their homeworld, all is lost." The comm officer nodded, and gave the order. 50 ships, ranging from a heavy cruiser to frigates broke formation, pinpricks of light opening in space showing slipspace entrances.

A few moments later, a message came from the High Council. The video feed put onto the main screen, and Councilor 'Klazumee's face appeared, taking up most of the screen.

"I heard there was an attack on our homeworld, Fleet Master. What has happened so far?" The Councilor's face had a slightly worried look.

"We have sustained an attack from the Jiralhanae Fleet of Everlasting Faith. We have destroyed them completely, but at the cost of our entire defense platform line up. I am afraid we have also taken minimal casualties when we arrived to the battle. We have also received a distress call from the Human's homeworld."

At the mention of a distress call, the Councilor's face piqued with interest. "What has happened to our new allies?"

The Fleet Master's head dropped, "I do not know. They said they were also being a Jiralhanae fleet. The fleet sent there is unknown, in both size and name, but I have sent 50 of our vessels to aid the Humans in their defenses." His head rose again and he looked directly into the Councilor's eyes, "if we lose the Humans, and more importantly, if we lose their homeworld, we are all but doomed."

The Councilor thought for a moment. "I fear for ourselves, more than the Humans. It is true; what you have spoken, but I doubt that the Covenant has sent their new ruler in that fleet. If the Human defenses are destroyed, however, and the Jiralhanae land ground forces, it will be much more difficult to sustain our war efforts against the Prophets. Our forces will be much more divided and spread out then they already are, and we can not afford that. So I want you to send 25 more ships to aid the Humans."

The Fleet Master nodded his head, and gave the order to be carried out. "The order has been given. We can only wait now, Councilor."

"That much is true. Keep me informed of anything new." The screen then fizzed out to static and then black.

* * *

The battle raged on. The fleet that attacked Earth was the same size as the one which attacked Retenkos, but most of Earth's defenses were shattered after the previous attack. The captains and commanders who were lucky enough to have shielding equipped onto their ships were used carefully and cautiously by what remained of the Admiralty. Fore they were the only ships able to withstand more than two plasma hits.

What is now the remnants of a once mighty battle fleet, the UNSCs defenses were now in tatters. Before the first attack by The Prophet of Mercy, it stood at over 500 vessels strong. After that attack, it was whittled to less than 200. Now, after a day's worth of fighting, the fleet was reduced to less than 120 ships. Fleetwide radio chatter echoed through space, amidst the chaos and confusion of combat. What remained of the SMAC platforms helped out as they could, able to pound into the shields of the enemy, but ammo was beginning to be a concern for them, as only one orbital tether was left on Earth to deliver supplies to the stations. As soon as one platform reloaded on supplies, another needed munitions. The engagement was going badly. Out of an original fleet of 300, the Brutes were now torn down to under 230. They had sent an emergency distress to Retenkos, in hopes of gaining support, but it was still not here.

Longsword single ship fighter squadrons cut through space, engaging enemy Seraphs and making bombing runs on enemy ships. Luckily, the Seraphs were few and far between, and the ones that were shot down were done so with relative ease. It was quite clear to both the Elites and Humans that Brutes made poor pilots. Though a Longsword was typically the victor against a Seraph, even when the Elites piloted them, there was occasionally a loss from the Seraphs. A particular squadron, one that had survived many encounters with the Covenant, both Elite and Brute, had racked up well over their fair share of Seraph kills, and were even credited with two light capitol ship kills. The squadron was the 242nd Warhawks. The 4 Longswords cut through space, chasing down the remaining, but few straggling Seraphs. Soon they returned to their home ship for orders. They soon got a new mission.

On this particular mission, they were on a bombing run. A bombing run for a very specific target. The target being an enemy dreadnought that was using its particle beam cannon as a sniper, much like at Reach. It was wreaking havoc on the already crippled human defenses. The Warhawks were escorting two Broadsword bombers, both with a payload of Shiva Warheads. The plan was to have a SMAC platform or another ship in position to take out the shielding of the dreadnought, then the Longswords would make a breach in the hull of it with their missiles, and then the Broadswords would finally release their payloads into the hull breach. The warheads were on a remote detonate so the Covenant wouldn't be able to stop it with any AIs they might have on board. The theory was, after the warheads were safely delivered inside of the Dreadnought, they could escape and it's shields would regenerate. Once the shields were back online, they would detonate the two warheads, encased in a super-dense alloy that would increase the yield a hundredfold, and the blast would be even more powerful because it would be contained in it's shielding for the time they held up. The blast would engulf any nearby ships, and hopefully cause a spiral effect. They launched off the fighter deck, into the black of space.

* * *

"Are you sure? Who did you hear this from?" Drake's voice rang through their private comm channel in the current command post in the city, and for the entire world of Lobonikos. Inside the building was everything you'd expect from a top-notch UNSC command center, computers, relay equipment, officers, even a section for the secretive people in ONI. The Spartans were currently about to organize defenses, given permission over the surrounding area. A poor job had been done by the officers in the command center, who were probably skilled, if at all, in naval combat.

Machine guns had to be repositioned, artillery had to pre-sight much of the surrounding landscape, and outposts had to be located in more strategic areas. It would take a few hours, but it would be worth it in case any of the Brute forces tried to make any more assaults. Though conquered, many Brute forces still remained upon Lobonikos. Enough remained to be considered a major thread, and enough to warrant an entire air field of support. Skyhawks, Sparrowhawks, and Shortsword interceptors all crouched on the sides of the runways. Though only three squadrons of Shortswords, and a modest detachment of Skyhawks and Sparrowhawks, it was still enough to flatten most opposition. And while the Covenant's anti-air capabilities were lacking, and there was no Seraph support to chase them off, the pilots still had to be careful were they were flying. They still had a few anti-air guns left, though they weren't that numerous.

"Yes, I'm sure. I got word from someone aboard one of the ships, they even mentioned it specifically. I'm pretty sure that whatever happens from this point on, can't be good." Alexandria's voice repeated again, slightly agitated.

Carl whistled. "Well then we have to mop up the remnant forces even quicker, I don't want to be caught with my pants down from the Covie bastards. But I just can't believe it. We've been pushing them back, finally, after all this time, and now we get the Bloody Arrow, a total route. What was enough to cause enough chaos for that code word to be given?"

"Well from what the guy said, he was a bit panicked, so it took me some time to calm him down, but I think that our recon force to that new Halo we found was all but destroyed and they had to pull out. Ground troops are still there, fighting any Flood and any Covenant forces that have landed. He also said that they attacked Retenkos and Earth. I don't have any other details," Alexandria finished, and they stopped walking.

The three Spartans stood there, looking at each other. Drake then spoke, "you know what this means, then?" The other two nodded in agreement. They had work to do, and fast.

* * *

**Author's Notes: I am truly sorry about the wait for this chapter, and writer's block is no excuse for such a long period of time. I just hope that you'll all forgive me, and that you will all be patient for my next chapter. Remember, please review!**

**Warbirds**


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